Swarm Kit.....

[Gypsi]

Capt44, your system is like mine except I drive a pickup truck, I get the queen in the bucket, the rest of the bees mostly walk in, but I cover with a white sheet and the loose bees do a bit of exploring at traffic lights. My neighbors must love to see me come home with those bees flying behind the truck.  So far I have not been pulled over!  Sign on my truck says "pond service' the bees are the give away

I never thought about putting a queen excluder in the lid, sounds good on paper.
I just sit my bucket down and all the loose bees come to the bucket.
I then just sit the bucket in my van and take off.
The bees stay with the queen.
.......
I think most folks in Searcy see my Van and say   Look out here he comes.

[rober]

I have a 5 gallon bucket that I cut a hole in the lid & installed a screen. I have another 5 gallon bucket that I can attach to a telescopic painter's pole ( used for rolling ceilings ) that stretches to 24'. you can bump the swarm from the ground & dump that bucket into the catch bucket. I also bring a couple of cardboard nuc boxes.
for tools I bring a small & large pruner, bow saw, cordless sawzall, a spray bottle filled with a light sugar syrup, queen clip, lemon grass oil, & appropriate ladders. NEVER believe the caller about how high up they are. they are almost always up higher than quoted.

[efmesch]

rober says: " NEVER believe the caller about how high up they are. they are almost always up higher than quoted."

Ef adds:  Another NEVER believe the caller is his/her description of how L_A_R_G_E  (enormous) the swarm is.  From my experience, those who call to tell you aout a swarm usually enlarge it by at least 50%--- more often, by 100-200%.

Even so, I like to go to catch my swarms with a full sized 10 frame deep.

[riverbee]

maybe another gadget to add to your arsenal?
i have seen photos of these, anyone use one?

[tbonekel]

Hey that's cool! Although you could so the same thing with a regular 5gal bucket.

[cover it up]

Here's my bucket. It works good for me. I can get up to 50ft. I like the twist lids.

[cover it up]

Made change on top of leads added queen secluder



 

[Lburou]

Several great ideas above for sure! 

Shown below is the 20ft long pipe with a crowbar taped to the end for shaking high branches, (If you look up and to the right of the top of the pipe, you will see the swarm).   If you can wait, do this early in the morning while the bees are at their coolest for the day and enough bees will drop to the ground to get things started.  In this case, I shook the limb in late afternoon, but many of the bees went back to their branch. The early morning shake did the trick.

Sometimes, when the swarm is 20 ft up in a tree, I will spread an old bed sheet on the ground directly under the hanging swarm to help bees focus on the new home you are offering them.  Once they start marching toward the new home, they will all go in. 

With bees already on the ground and milling around or marching into the  box, several more shakes may be necessary to dislodge bees that return to the branch and the scent left by the queen.  Once the queen is on the ground, you have a good chance the bees will hive themselves as shown below.  This isn't my idea, I saw JPtheBeeman do this on TV.

[iddee]

One word of caution. Lee and JP are both down south. The worst I have ever been mobbed by a swarm was on an upper 40's degree morning. If it is below 60 F., DO NOT shake a swarm, any time of the day. I took over a hundred stings, as my face was so covered I could not see where to run to. I likely would not have been stung any if I had waited until it warmed before breaking their cluster.

[cover it up]

jest finish bee vac tested it with some popcorn work good with that can just air prd bee holder is 17 1/2 tall and 11" tall in a 8 gal bucket

[cover it up]

going to make me a hopper next that will go on a bucket or all the boxes or nooks doing to work like funnel

[Lburou]

One word of caution. Lee and JP are both down south. The worst I have ever been mobbed by a swarm was on an upper 40's degree morning. If it is below 60 F., DO NOT shake a swarm, any time of the day. I took over a hundred stings, as my face was so covered I could not see where to run to. I likely would not have been stung any if I had waited until it warmed before breaking their cluster.

Rightly said, if it is 95 degrees when you shake the branch, they just fly back and rest again near the same spot, that is why I waited for cool morning air...60-70 degrees F.    Thanks Iddee, that is an important point. 

[riverbee]

"if it is 95 degrees when you shake the branch, they just fly back and rest again near the same spot"

lee, just use a little fishers bee quick on the branch and/or surrounding area, they won't fly back on it or wherever you have sprayed a little of the bee quick....

[Lburou]

"if it is 95 degrees when you shake the branch, they just fly back and rest again near the same spot"

lee, just use a little fishers bee quick on the branch and/or surrounding area, they won't fly back on it or wherever you have sprayed a little of the bee quick....

Good idea RB, but in that particular case, my arms were too short!     

[riverbee]

.................

okay lee, so a branch a little far from reach?..............

my apologies, maybe we need to figure out how to spray this stuff up high?..........

[iddee]

""maybe we need to figure out how to spray this stuff up high?""

Nah, just figure out how to stretch Lee's arms.      

[LazyBkpr]

I got a chain!   

[Lburou]

I always wonder how it would be to work on a chain gang.