lost a swarm today

[bee_pipes]

Blast! I just checked the hives Monday, and added supers. It had been a while since I tore them down, so each was checked for queen cells. Didn't find a thing. Then today, my wife calls me out to the porch just in time to see a cloud of bees condensing on a tree branch.

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/swarm.jpg
Too high up in the tree to retrieve, and no swarming supplies. Won't make that mistake again next year. This is really going to hurt honey production...

Regards,
Pat

[AlchemyAcres]

Too high up in the tree to retrieve, and no swarming supplies. Won't make that mistake again next year. This is really going to hurt honey production...


I've shot swarms out off trees several times with a shotgun when they're too high up or the tree was too small to climb.. Place a hive body with frames on the ground below them and blast the branch they're resting on.

Last time I did that, it was a bit of a dry swarm so they were pretty nasty....they came raining down, but didn't take to the hivebody....they clustered on the side of a white ash tree, but within reach.....I was able to rest the hivebody on the branch beside them and coax them in with a bee brush.


~Martin ;)