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WILLOWTREE BREAD

Swarm season

4/24/2013

2 Comments

 
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Masses of bees!
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Fuzzy but a queen cup just visible (centre) with larva in royal jelly - a developing queen.
The spring weather here in the Pacific Northwest has been pleasant for a few days now and like all animals, the bees are ready to reproduce. We noticed some swarm cells in our beehive just over a week ago so we tried to pre-empt a swarm by removing the queen, some brood and stores to a new hive – trying to trick them into thinking they had swarmed.
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Trying to trick the bees: The 'swarm' hive is on the left with the 'parent' hive to the right.
This morning I thought I would check the new hive and saw another swarm cell – meaning that they had decided to swarm again. By the time I had walked to the barn to get the kit to make another artificial swarm they had done it for real! The bees were pouring out of the hive and forming a bee tornado all around me, but because they are fueled up with honey for the trip they don't sting.


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Bees all around.
They settled in a fir tree a few yards away and so I climbed a set of stepladders and shook the cluster into a large cardboard box – they were surprisingly heavy, probably 4 Kg in all.

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The swarm settled into irregular bunches.
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Charles with catching box.
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Then we simply poured the bees into yet another new hive, we must have caught the queen as they stayed put.

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The catching box placed tempoarily on top of the new hive.
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The few bees remaining flew into the new hive eventually.
So now we have three hives when a couple of weeks ago we had one! Whew!         Charles
2 Comments
Sarah
4/24/2013 04:15:00 pm

This is really cool! Can't wait to try the honey!

Reply
Shauna link
4/25/2013 02:11:18 am

Wow! You're brave diving right in there for the first time!
I'm glad you're sharing your farm adventures with the world.

Reply



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    Gillian

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