Been a very busy last couple of days. Sunday night I noticed I had captured my first swarm in a trap about 2 miles down the road East of me. I suspect it is actually the swarm that came out of my hive last Friday that disappeared so quickly because it was that very afternoon that this particular trap began being over run with scout bees.
I waited until after nightfall Sunday evening and took the trap down and moved it to it's new hive location.
You can see the advantage to capturing swarms this way in the above picture. I place the bottom board I plan on using when I hive the swarm under the trap. When I spin the entrance disc back open I use the slotted entrance which will let the worker bees out but not the queen therefore I do not have to worry about the bees not liking their new location and it forces the foragers to re-orient to their new location. The next step is to leave the trap alone for two days so as not to upset the newly moved swarm. Inside the trap are two complete frames of drawn comb (Taken from a hive that died out over Winter) this allows the new hive to begin building up and storing food and let's the queen start laying eggs if she is so inclined.
After two days I will suit up and open the trap, remove the frames and shake the bees into their permanent boxes with a full compliment of frames. This limits waste from the bees building new comb from the top of the box and ensures any workers out and about will come back to the right spot.
On my way home from work this morning I noticed I had captured swarm number two in another trap way South of me so I will need to go get it tonight or tomorrow night.
My plan was to move this new hive over this afternoon but Mother Nature saw fit to break our dry spell with a pretty severe storm all afternoon. We got at least an inch of rain I think along with hail, some as large as golf balls and 60+ MPH winds. I also have yet another roof panel that needs fixing now oh and one of the last two hold out ewe's decided to drop her twins as well.
To top it off one of the lambs has gotten an infection on her tail where the band was and I had to take her to the vet and then go pick her back up. They kept her a few hours for observation but finally said she will be fine.
So much for getting any thing done on the fence though and I doubt it will be dry enough tomorrow yet either.
Like the saying goes when it rains it pours. It seems we only have an off and on switch around here sometimes. Either it comes in a flood or not at all.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!!
PP - i really like reading about your bees, your set-up, your systems and the explanations of why you do things the way you do. i hope your little ewe heals up and i hope to get to get working on the fence.
ReplyDeletesending love. your friend,
kymber
kymber - Thanks!!! The little ewe was up and running around today like nothing had ever got her down. Those antibiotics the vet gives em are some powerful stuffs :)
DeleteIsn't that how it always seems... all or nothing. Bleh.
ReplyDeleteMax - Seriously !!!
DeleteI like that door disk. I need to get some of those. I didn't know the slots would let the workers out. I thought it was just for ventilation. The way you work it makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteMV - I bought those from Mann Lake but they were a bit pricey as I remember it. The slots are the same size as the queen excluder slots so I assumed that's how they work. I know they do work that way but cause one hell of a traffic jam.
DeleteI like the way you re-orient the bees to the new location and leave them in the trap at first. There is a lot of opinions on the internet about how to do this, but in your opinion does the distance the trap is moved matter? Some say you have to move it at least three miles to force the bees to re-orient.
ReplyDeletePerry - I have always moved the traps a distance of about 1.8 miles as the crow flies minimum. The distance from my bee yard to the location of the trap this one was located on is about 1.9 miles which is the shortest distance I have with my set up right now. The two trap locations I have that are close to two apiaries I take to the furthest orchard apiary which is about 4 miles away.
DeleteYou can move bee hive short distances by doing it in five foot jumps but that's kinda a pain. I have also moved hives successfully about 100 yards but waited until they were in the Winter ball. Once I did have to move a hive only about 30 feet in Summer and I did it at night and put a tree branch with lots of leaves over the entrance and it worked but I only did that one time.
Very interesting about the bees. We have rain moving in here.
ReplyDeleteLisa - We are suppose to get more storms tonight. I welcome the rain but not the winds and hail :(
DeleteInteresting! Our first bee order was destroyed in shipping. We managed to find another (to arrive next month.) Knowing how to capture a swarm might have saved us some headache!
ReplyDeleteHG - I find swarms to be the best way to get bees. They are already a cohesive group and you know they have a good queen and then there is that comb building thing. Plus they are free!!!!
DeletePP,
ReplyDeleteAlright 2 captures, now to have the time to move them to their permanent hives. Ouch....poor little lamb, good to hear it's doing better.
Sandy - The one I have to move tonight is the biggest pain. I really cut down the number of traps I have out this year though because of time restraints. Next year should be back to normal however.
DeleteHow do you find bees in a barn....this sounds stupid I know but we have an old tobacco barn 65x34....we can hear the bees but cannot seem to actually locate them....we spend a lot of time trying to follow them to the humming....could they be in a pole?
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting and informative bee post. When I put the lemongrass oil in my bait hive I immediately had a bunch of visitors, but I suspect they were my own bees in the vicinity. They may just be confused. I'm in the process of requeening one of my new hives and hope to have success to report on my blog in a couple of days.
ReplyDelete