Catching a Bee Swarm

If you read my last update on the bees you know our over-wintered hive attempted to swarm, but we split the hive to stop them – with success, thankfully. July has been wet, no doubt, and the queen continues to lay as this is the busiest time of the year for the bees and a strong colony is super important to ensure they are able to bring in enough resources for the winter. We did a hive inspection just over a week ago and noticed the number of bees in our middle hive (which was the nuc we purchased earlier this year) had gone up, they were starting to run out of room (meaning the frames were nearly full), so we added another box. The next day, I was about to start teaching an online workshop when the doorbell rang, I opened the door, it was our neighbour. “Kaelin, I’m not sure what’s happening, but your bees are everywhere and they are very noisy.” I looked through to the back of the yard, and sure enough, I could see bees… a lot of them! A four letter word came out of my mouth, there wasn’t much I could do as I had students waiting and really, you have to wait for the bees to calm down. By the time I was done talking to the neighbour, the bees were already settling into a spruce tree in our yard (thankfully!).
 

As I taught I watched out of the corner of my eye as fewer and fewer bees were around, by the time I was done teaching an hour later, they were all settled into the tree – perfect.
 

I called my friends who have caught a few swarms in their neighbourhood and my friend’s brother who was looking for bees. The bees were in towards the top of the spruce tree in a cluster, and although they could have been shaken out of the tree, the tree was being removed next year anyway… I wrote about this on social media and lots of folks were concerned about this next step so I will give you a little background:

We back onto a ravine and have a very happy little ecosystem in our yard from garter snakes to chipmunks to birds galore, the ecosystem in the ravine is even more diverse of course with coyotes, porcupines, deer and moose. Every spring we have an issue with the porcupines coming into the yard to nibble on the fruit trees – the first year they killed three apple trees. We have a weak apple tree that needs to go and this past spring they did a number on our larch tree… Anyway, the apple tree that is weak will need to be removed next summer. The spruce tree the bees landed in was also quite unhealthy and was going to be removed next summer to be replaced with an apple tree with the hopes that the porcupine won’t have as easy access to it as it’s not as close to the fence (which is how it gets into the trees it’s done damage to!).

Back to the bees, they sawed the top of the tree off, then sawed just below the bees, removing the entire cluster of bees on the trunk. They carried the trunk over to a box and shook the bees in. Within 15 minutes all of the bees had moved into the box. As long as you get the queen into the box on the first attempt, the other bees will start to signal to the rest of the bees and they’ll all move to where the queen is. The box was closed up and away they went to their new home in Pleasantview.

 
I am happy the bees chose to stay in our yard, that we were able to catch them and that they went to a good home. It was quite the evening! As always, these little insects continue to amaze me. Swarming is quite common at this time of the year as the hives are so strong, but as I said in my last post, it’s not ideal for backyard beekeeping. Hopefully this is all of the bee drama we have for the year.

The three hives are looking healthy now – our original queen is still laying and her hive is busy collecting nectar and pollen, producing loads of honey. The hive that swarmed should have a new queen in the coming weeks. The hive that was the original split now has a laying queen so we are seeing lots of new bees, and the resources are strong in this hive too.

Hopefully the rest of the season isn’t as wet and the bees can continue to be out foraging, storing resources for the winter, and hopefully we are able to take a bit of honey.