Well, I had my first swarm this afternoon. I was heading into town and as I passed my hives, one of them was just going crazy. Thousands of bees flying every which way and just pouring out the entrance.

It didn't look those that I've seen online where it looks like a tornado of bees, they were just going crazy. So, I sat and watched them for awhile and a large group headed out away from the hive a little ways (maybe 30-40 feet) and were swarming around a tree nearby. They settled in at the end of a branch about 40 feet up.

My question is, any ideas as to the best way to get them collected?

Unfortunately, I don't own a cherry picker, so that's out. I do have a roof rake that has a 25ft pole. I attached a 5-gallon bucket to the end with some duct tape, and I figure if I get my 10ft tripod type ladder underneath, I should be able to reach it up there and whack them loose and into the bucket.

I've got a fellow beekeeper coming by about 6AM to help me out with it (mostly just holding the ladder for me).

Any other suggestions or ideas as to how to get these things collected and into a new hive?

Disregard. They boogied.

I was hoping they'd stick around there until the morning but they had other plans.

I'll walk around the property tonight to see if I can find them but I'm not holding my breath.

Hopefully they just split and didn't take the only queen with them. There seems to be a fair amount of bees left in the hive, so....

I'll get in there tomorrow and investigate a little.

Swarms rarely stick around for more than a couple hours. They leave the hive and sit somewhere while scouts go out and look for a new place to build a hive. I had one swarm on me but luckily they were only about 8' up so I cut down the branch that they were on and shook them into a hive body that I had.

Yeah, I have an extra hive body for just this occurrance should it happen. I was really hoping that they'd stick around until the morning. I could have saved $150 buying another package. Dang it.

It's funny because about a week ago I saw them going nuts outside the hive and thought that I'd pre-empt a swarm by putting on some extra room up top. I was out there yesterday feeding them and all seemed well. They were happy and calm and I thought that I'd gotten ahead of them. Apparently not.

Oh well.

I am too new to be of a lot of help. From what I have read, the old queen took part of your colony with her. You should find queen cells in your hive (birth of new colony). If you find multiple queen cells (looks like a peanut) and have the woodenware, you might be able to do a split right now.

If you don't or can't split, then pinch all but 2 queen cells. If you go this route use the frame with the most queen cells, and leave 2 on the same side. The idea here is to help the new queen by fighting for her (killing other queens). It also helps reduce long gaps netween emerging queens that might cause future swarms.

Once a colony swarms, they are likely to swarm again. Limiting the queen cells should lower the desire.

If a frame has 2 queen cells, leave them. Pull other frames with queen cells and put them in an empty hive with 2 frames of brood and a frame of nectar.

They likely ran out of space. I am working to correct the established hive I just bought. It is packed full of stores with little if any room to grow bees. I am trying ot hunt drawn comb to give the queen something to lay eggs in.

quote:

Originally posted by ffips:
They likely ran out of space.

Yeah, that's more than likely what happened. That's why I put the extra box up top to try to prevent it. But, no joy.

And, hopefully it was the old queen taking off as she was a real bitch. That was one angry hive with her in charge.

If things are working as they should, your current hive should have a virgin queen in it soon. The remaining bees know they are queenless right now and can make one. As long as eggs and or larva less than 36 hours old are present, the colony will right itself.

If you dont see new eggs in 14 days(need to double check timeline), you might be able to save them if you buy a mated queen.

And..... if you already know all this (betting you do), feel free to tell me to hush.

For this happening next year , create a phantom hive.
Super with some old drawn out extracted frames and new ones as well.
When observing the extra activity,bearding etc.
Place a couple drops of lemon grass oil in hive and a drop on the entrance.
Refresh every few days.
Has worked for me several times.
sadly the last couple of years my county has killed off pretty much all the bees ,domestic as well as wild colonies.

Any updates?

Nothing new. I searched for them but to no avail. They're off on their own and hopefully they'll survive.

They had plenty of room, so no idea why they decided to take off. Just one of those learning experiences with beekeeping I guess. They know a whole heck of a lot more about what they do and why they do it than I do, so I just go along to get along.

45Cal's suggestion is a good one. I do keep an extra hive around for "just in case" reasons, and I think if I see this activity again I'll try this.

The good news is that the whole hive didn't leave. There's still a good number of bees in there and active. I'll get in there in a week or two and see if there are any eggs/larva. Hopefully there will be, but if not, I'll order up a queen to try to save them.

Please let us know how the remainders do in a few weeks.

We had two hives when I was a kid.
Riding my bike home from school I observed our bees swarming.

So, my knowledge on the subject, is simply that, I know what a swarm looks like.

With my credentials now stated I would like to throw-out my assessment of the situation.

You threw on the extra box too late.
They had already made up their mind to swarm before you gave them the extra space.

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
We had two hives when I was a kid.
Riding my bike home from school I observed our bees swarming.

So, my knowledge on the subject, is simply that, I know what a swarm looks like.

With my credentials now stated I would like to throw-out my assessment of the situation.

You threw on the extra box too late.
They had already made up their mind to swarm before you gave them the extra space.

Yeah, probably way too late.

If there was more than one queen in there, which is what I'm hoping, then there was nothing I could do to keep them from swarming and perhaps setting up an empty hive as 45Cal suggested may have saved them.

If a lone queen took off with the majority of the bees, then maybe the extra space would have discouraged the move had it been put on in time. It's frustrating as I was in the hive just a few days before and all seemed well...nothing out of the ordinary as far as I could tell.

Again, they know but I don't think that we do.

I chalk it up as another learning experience.