Author Topic: Smallest swarm  (Read 2841 times)

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Offline apisbees

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Smallest swarm
« on: May 24, 2014, 12:48:29 pm »
I got a panicked call from my cousin that one of the hives I had moved in to the orchards was in the process of swarming. The swarm of bees were moving away from the main hive, I told him to watch them and if the didn't settle on one for the fruit trees and decided to take off across the the neighbors field, to bang on something to create a concussion sound and it will cause the bees to find a place to cluster. With this knowledge he thought if he set a hive close to the swarm and made the noise the bees would enter the empty hive he had set on the ladder. He fired a banger flair the ones he uses to scare the starlings away from the cherries.He shot it off about 100 feet from the hive and the bees all headed back into the hive that the swarmed from. With in 5 minutes the bees were back in the hive with a few clustering up the front of the hive. The Queen returned close to the hive with the swarmed bees but dropped into the grass rather than re-enter the hive. So I found this tee cup cluster of bees with the queen 15 feet from the hive.






I went thru the hive and found 4 nice queen cells on different frames and split the hive into 4 nucs and shook and added bees to the swarm. I culled about 8 cells because of, Size - shot cells in a lot of cases means the cell may not have received the required attention and resources that is needed to produce a good queen. Location - cells along the bottom of the frames  are more likely to be chilled do to the fact that once they are split into small nucs they are on the bottom edge of the cluster and if there is not a large enough bee that the could be chilled. Age - cells that are open or newly capped are discarded in favor of cells that are capped darker in color, and ones that have the emerging end of the queen cell polished off.
Honey Judge, Beekeeping Display Coordinator, Armstrong Fair and Rodeo.

Offline blueblood

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Re: Smallest swarm
« Reply #1 on: May 24, 2014, 08:06:26 pm »
Nice.  Hey, is that a queen hind end there in the first picture center 2/3 way down?

Offline Perry

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Re: Smallest swarm
« Reply #2 on: May 24, 2014, 08:36:07 pm »
Nice.  Hey, is that a queen hind end there in the first picture center 2/3 way down?

That would be my bet too.
Nice pictures Apis!
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Offline jb63

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Re: Smallest swarm
« Reply #3 on: May 25, 2014, 12:16:48 am »
Cool pictures Apis.
I don't know.It was like that when I got here.

Offline DMLinton

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Re: Smallest swarm
« Reply #4 on: May 25, 2014, 07:53:09 am »
Apis, what are the pros and cons of trying to start a new hive with the teacup swarm and their queen?  The reason I ask is that a couple of local beeks have mentioned putting a handfull of bees with the queen in someting like a one litre flower pot and starting new colonies.  It's an interesting sounding concept and, potentially, a usefull option to have in the "toolbox" but I have to wonder how successful it is.  I presume that one of the prerequisites would be toasty warm weather?
Regards, Dennis
First bees installed July 1, 2014..

Offline apisbees

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Re: Smallest swarm
« Reply #5 on: May 25, 2014, 06:14:12 pm »
Yes that is the queen I put her in a super and gave her a frame with stores and shook bees in with her. that is close to the bees added to a baby mini mating nuc when they are first set up so given long enough they could build up but with added resources you can have them built back up very quickly. It has a population of 8 frames of bees to support the queen.
Honey Judge, Beekeeping Display Coordinator, Armstrong Fair and Rodeo.