Another swarm

[Jon]

Called over to the association apiary this morning for the first time since Tuesday evening and found a huge swarm had taken up residence in a stack of 4 of my supers sitting by the gate.
It completely filled 3 of them.
I found the queen, who had already started laying, and put her frame in the centre of a brood box with 10 more drawn frames.
I put an excluder on top of the brood and set the supers on top.
This one probably arrived on Thursday as well as there must have been 5-6k of nectar in the supers.
The hive on the Arnia scale put on 5k in 4 days this week, most of it on Thursday and Friday.
The queen is black and the bees are 100% black as well so I suspect it must be from a member of the queen rearing group within range.
Definitely not one of mine as I have all of them marked and clipped.

[brothermoo]

Swarmtastic! I have been hiving a swarm this evening that was in a hedge. Got a call this morning and had a look and put a box over them (more to protect them from rain than actually to get them into)
Went back this afternoon and made a plan and took some trusty correx and my smoker to get them up into the box.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/19/erymynuz.jpg
Wee bit of persuasion out of the hedge (which I have found the hardest swarm to coax) and they started parading in!
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/05/19/pybe6a9y.jpg
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[Jon]

Swarm fever at the moment.
One of the preliminary class got a swarm in Bangor a couple of days ago the day after setting out his bait hive.
If you own spare equipment you should have it set out at the moment.
I have bees sniffing around bait hives I have in the garden at the moment and that was during light rain today son may pick up another with a bit of luck.

[fatshark]

Loads af activity around a bait hive yesterday and there are dozens there now (8am). Interestingly, after the scouts had let yesterday evening there were a handful of drones about, several of which appeared to stay overnight in the bait hive … at least, they were there at dusk, on the tatty old comb, and no longer flying. I'd not noticed them during the day. I don't think they were with the scout bees, but instead suspect they were from two strong nucs I moved away the day before. I had no workers returning from these (despite moving them only a couple of miles). I guess the drones returned to the nearest hive they could find to their original nucs.

It's going to be a hot day again here and since I'm "working at home" I'm hoping to be about should a swarm move in.

[Jon]

Last year at a bait hive there were hundreds of workers checking it out.
At one point in the afternoon they all disappeared and I though they must have picked somewhere else.
About half an hour later the swarm arrived.
The scouts must all return together to the swarm to guide it to the new home.
It will be interesting to hear Tom Seeley again this summer in Gormasnton as he has done such amazing work on this aspect of bee communication.

[gavin]

Cool. Must have been 'all hands to the pumps' back at the swarm, telling those with the wrong message to shut up, telling them all to warm up, then showing them the way.

It was a swarmy day here too. I made the mistake of putting off Q marking and clipping at the association apiary for an organised event to do it, which never happened during a run of cold and wet weekends. And there was a swarm call to a garden in Invergowrie right beside a church and a primary school, both of which have had swarms in recnt years too. Probably a feral site in the immediate area as there is no beekeeper I know about close by.

[fatshark]

Last year at a bait hive there were hundreds of workers checking it out.
At one point in the afternoon they all disappeared and I though they must have picked somewhere else.
About half an hour later the swarm arrived.


I've noticed exactly the same thing … now when I look at the bait hive I'm asking myself "are there less than there were an hour or so ago".

My only slight concern is that when they leave the bait hive they fly off in the general direction of one of my apiaries … all the queens there are clipped and I'm reasonably sure I know what's happening in the colonies. However, there are half a dozen more hives a couple of fields further away … time will tell.

[brothermoo]

I have some bits of spare kit out and with the good weather during the week there was loads of interest. But the rain has arrived so the swarm yesterday was less likely to get moving. Here is a linkm to youtube video I uploaded of said swarm: http://youtu.be/YYAbqt9tQr0
I loved the Tom Seeley stuff you showed us back in march Gavin, a great wee series to explain the workings of a swarm.

[Calum]

plucked two swarms out of the same tree on Sunday (probably prime and secondary).
Re bait hives - (as far as I know) illegal here because it takes away the right of the swarm owner to persue the swarm- (the only case in Germany where you can enter someone elses property uninvited), also if they are moving into drawn comb, they can deposit the stores they brought with them directly into that -increasing the likelyhood of xFB spread - if they have to use their stores to make new comb the fouldbrood is not transferred. This is also why we are supposed to put swarms into the basement for 3days.

[fatshark]

I've noticed exactly the same thing … now when I look at the bait hive I'm asking myself "are there less than there were an hour or so ago". … time will tell.

Well, they arrived … unfortunately I was on a conference call. My wife and daughter were in the garden and rushed in. Now, an hour later, and they're all tucked up in the box.

@Calum … I have foundationless frames in my bait hives (other than one old manky frame) and don't feed them for ~3 days for the reasons you stated. I'm not sure if they get a chance to deposit stores into the old frame (I might have a peek tonight).

PS … and a cast arrived in another bait hive on another site. Possibly too small to be bothered with so might unite it. I need the equipment.