Jen's swarm #9

[Jen]

Okay, so now I just go up and close off the hive. The bees outside all come back and land on the hive and get quiet.

Perry- Last time this happened you asked if this could be an orientation flight? The orientation flights that I 'think' I saw last year were fewer bees than this and they didn't crawl up the front of the hive and wander around in the upper air. It was a more gentle process.
It's only about 10 minutes when these bees are pushing the entrances forward to get out.

UPDATE- TWO HOURS LATER -The bees are still pushing at the entrance covers that I have taped off. I'm seriously considering just letting them go. I don't see letting installing a new queen when the bees have this kind of 'Get The Hot Out Of Here' attitude.

[pistolpete]

That looks to me like a bunch of foragers coming back from the field and looking for a way in.    I'm not sure why you closed off the hive like that, but it's a dangerous thing to do.  The hive could overheat or suffocate from lack of ventilation.  When you want to keep the bees in the hive for some reason, the entrance should be screened, not stopped up.  Also it should be done late in the evening, when all the ladies are home.

[barry42001]

Can't stop a swarm by closing the entrance, you do shut down their ventilation. if that particular colony wants to swarm, as soon as you open the entrance up the swarm will issue with in hours, assuming this is actually a swarm. I still am very much confused, assuming you have gone through your hives and found no queen cells under construction?  for your sanity you have to continue changing out the genetics of these bees, by all means install the new Queens, just make sure that all the queen cells are done/ destroyed.

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[Jen]

Hey Pete, this pic was taken within 15 minutes of the swarm. I recognize this action right away now. The bees start coming out of the hive and climbing up front of the hive, 5 minutes later they are starting to flow out and hit the sky, 5 minutes after that they are boiling out. 5 days ago I closed off the other hive when that was happening, one hour later we opened it up and all the bees that were left outside went back in. This time I did the same thing, one hour later I went out to open up the entrance and let them in. I noticed that there were still tons of bee pushing on the reducers trying to get out.

Cool windy day today, about 50. If you take a closer look there are several vent holes drilled in the bottom board facing that hubby made for me. and the top entrance is still open.

The bees you see on the hive are the ones that just boiled out before I shut the doors. I'm sure they are wondering why the others didn't follow, and why they can't get back in.

In a way I'm experimenting with these last two swarms to see what happens if I just close the doors for an hour. Will it take away the swarm instinct? probably not. If I have stopped the swarm by closing the doors, how long will it take for the swarm to happen again. Maybe it will give me enough time to make a split or nuc?

Has anyone on this forum stopped a swarm short? what was the result? 

[Gypsi]

If you bang a spoon or something on a trash can lid or steel pot while the swarm is in the air it supposedly sends them back in the hive.  My hot hive was looking like swarm prep, although the queen cells I saw last time weren't capped, and I slowed down my feeding to hold them off. As a consequence it appears that a lot of the surplus drones were thrown out of the hive, based on the 300 or so drones on the ground in front of it.

[Jen]

Hi Gypsi, the problem with my swarms is they happen within 15 minutes, there's no time to slow feeding. Ya just stand there and watch it happen. I think it was Apis that said that if you bang on somthing like a metal shed that the bees would come down. I haven't tried it yet tho.