O Happy Day!

I got a call at work today from Jeff. He said I had a swarm of bees in the front yard in a tree across from the mail box. I ran out to the car and drove right home, but alas, I saw no bees. Jeff was not home; he had gone to a medical appointment. So I drove back to work. I was there half an hour and I got a call from Kathy. She said I had a swarm of bees in the front yard in a tree across from the mail box. I ran out to the car and drove right home. This time, I made sure I looked in all the trees. Sure enough, I had a swarm of bees in the front yard.


On the way home, because I had been told twice, I called Doug Shaw who was just getting off work. So he joined me, just as excited as I was. I quickly cleaned a hive and installed brood frames in it. I only had two frames with decently drawn wax, so there are eight frames that are brand new.

As we looked at the swarm, we realized that we would not just be able to knock the branch or shake the tree. The swarm was on a pretty solid branch right next to the trunk. Fortunately, it was only a few feet off the ground. I brought out my Black and Decker workbench and set it up directly under the swarm. We set the hive directly on top of the workbench, just six or so inches from the bottom of the swarm.

We sprayed sugar water on the bees and on the frames. I don't own a bee brush and Doug didn't bring his, but we figured we could just sweep the bees into the hive. I used my gloves (very gently) and Doug used a small whisk broom that I had. The bees fell into the hive quite nicely.

We replaced the frames we had taken out to ensure that the bees actually made it into the hive body then set the hive on the ground. We needed to wait a bit because there were still bees on the tree. So we went and looked at the other hive. We think the swarm must have come from the nuc I just installed. It still had plenty of bees, but we saw no new brood other than capped cells. When we installed that hive last week, we noticed swarm cells at the bottom of some frames, but I thought nothing of it. This was a new nuc after all. But, I guess the queen swarmed. I am hoping a new queen emerged in the nuc and was off getting impregnated somewhere because we didn't see her.


I am very happy! I lost a hive last year and had to combine the one hive in my yard that survived the winter. Now I am back up to three hives. It was very fortunate. I would not have seen the swarm, but Jeff and Kathy did. It was lucky it landed where it did. Good blessings all around.