Back to school, a second swarm.

Last Friday I got a call from the swarm coordinator at Beverley Beekeepers Association about a honeybee swarm on Ella Street, about a quarter mile from where I live, unfortunately I was working so missed it. Turned out they would've been a bit hard to reach being six metres up a tree anyway. Then on Saturday I got another call about another swarm, this time on Greenwood Avenue. But I was out at Yorkshire Sculpture Park looking at some pretty amazing woodwork by Ursula von Rydingsvard, so once again I was unable to go look. Then on Wednesday I got a call about another bee swarm at a local school which I was free to go collect. That's three calls about bee swarms in Hull over six days, the coordinator had also been dealing with swarms in other areas too.

Rydingsvard's handiwork at YSP

The swarm were on a tree at Winifred Holtby Academy, a modern school over on the east side of the city. It's a rather nice campus, attractive outside and in. I don't know why Hull doesn't make more of it but we have some really impressive modern architecture in the city -there's certainly more than The Deep over here. Anyway after a couple of phone calls I dug out a 6 frame nucleus I'd built last August (and forgot to blog about) along with two frames of drawn comb and four of foundation. I grabbed the usual tools, smoker, metal bucket, gloves, boots and smock and my trusty Teflon coated saw -it's a bit old but not too long in the tooth. Saw, tooth. See what I did there?

Following the instructions of my satnav I arrived at the school and spotted (well okay couldn't miss) an area of immaculate lawn with a number of saplings on it that'd been cordoned off with cones and red and tape. There was a dark mass near the top of the middlemost tree which I guessed had to be the bees. I wandered into the school spoke to a couple girls on reception, one asked what I was going to do with the bees. I told her I was going to pop them in a box, take them home and keep them in my garden, at first she thought I was joking. :)

I'd guess the tree was about 5 metres tall, possibly the tallest of the set but not by much. One of the caretakers helpfully lent me some steps which I put near the tree so I was able to reach the bottom of the cluster. It was actually a very big cluster I suspect if I'd brought a 5 frame nuc it would've been a tight fit and with the 6 frame nuc they'll be a little congested. When the swarm was flying it must've been quite a sight.

It's one big cluster..

I needed to cut the branch to remove the bees but didn't want to take off any unnecessary tree and even on the ladder I could just reach the bees. If I was to just cut the branch below them the cluster would fall onto me or to the ground and I'd have to wait for the cluster to reform -neither were winning scenarios, especially with a little audience.. But with a plan in mind cut through the wood I did. It was bit slow going as I didn't want to shake off too many bees whilst sawing. Some bees fell from the cluster and I was able to gather them onto a frame of empty comb and place them in the Nuc. I figured they'ed probably start nosanoving and attract any fliers.

I cut almost but not quite through the branch so it hung downwards from the uncut edge. Holding the bit with the bees on in one hand I used a sharp coping saw, also loaned by the caretaker, to cut through the rest and carried the branch and the bees down. At this point some bees took flight, regrouping on other branches, but the majority stayed in the together. The important bit was to not lose the queen who should be somewhere in the middle of the mass. Holding the bee covered branch above the nucleus I gave it a sharp jolt downwards causing the bees to fall to the Nuc floor, filling it a couple of inches deep. At this point they got pretty noisy but there wasn't any mass exodus from the open box. None of the videos I've seen of people catching swarms manage to do the noise justice, it's something you really need to experience first hand.

Circle

I picked up the rest of the frames and dropped them in place not pressing them down as they were sitting on a cushion of bees. It didn't take long for the bees to move between the frames or out of the entrance allowing them to be settled into position and the crownboard placed above. The crownboard had a round feeding hole in the middle and the  bees nosanoving on top of it with their heads to the hole formed a circular pattern around it.

Budge up!

At the front of the hive there was a large number of bees who I guess had come out of the entrance shortly after being shaken in as well as flying bees who'd landed there. There was plenty of nosanoving going on there too which was just as well because a cadre of bees had returned to form their own small cluster up in the tree. To move them out I used a combination of smoking, brushing and gave the tree top a few good shakes to dislodge them, repeating the process a few times as they returned in smaller numbers. I used the same process to get bees off the steps too and gave the tree top a thorough smoking to mask any pheromones left on the wood. If this had been in a garden I'd've headed off at this point and returned few hours later when the bees were all inside but being a school building with people coming and going for various sporting activities that wasn't really a good plan so I spent a couple of hours with a rather nice coffee talking to the also rather pleasant girls on the reception before finally blocking the entrance with some sponge, taping it secure and making the slow drive home.

Spot the new one...

There was no room on the hivestand for this colony so I knocked up a temporary stand using left over breeze blocks and placed the Nuc on that. Whilst I have the space for a few more colonies I don't think it's very practical to have more than three given my urban location so at some point I'll be uniting a few colonies to get myself back down to three.

Mystical Stone of Orientation

I gather swarmed bees should automatically reorient themselves with their new surroundings after being hived but didn't want to take any chances -and it's not like bees haven't been known to do the exact opposite to what's expected. So I placed a small stone outside the hive entrance, not blocking it but certainly noticeable to the bees as they came out. This is a trick I picked up from the forums and should make them take note of the location of their hive entrance and prevent them trying to return to their old site.

The next day there were noticeably more bees flying in the garden particularly near the 6 frame nuc. I guess the new bees were taking orientation flights. Being a swarm they're probably all mature bees anyway unlike a regular colony where only about ten percent of the bees are going to be flying, plus in an established colony the flying bees will be going away to forage and returning straight to the hive rather than milling about outside so you'd probably see fewer at any one time anyway.

This weekend I'll hopefully have a look in the hive, see if the Queen is marked or not. I've got no idea where they came from but going by the size of the swarm they must be from a pretty healthy colony. Going to have to make some decisions about which Queens to keep when I start uniting colonies very soon.

To Catch A Swarm

About a year or so ago my cat had fleas. :( I treated the cat and called the council's Pest Control to spray the house - it's a waste of time trying to deal with them yourself, and not that pricey to just pay someone who knows what they're doing. Anyway we got talking about bees and they asked if I'd be interested in collecting swarms of honey bees if they had any reported. I said I would and gave them my number.

Yesterday I got a call about a honey bee swarm over in Bilton. It was in a hedge in an elderly chaps garden,  and would I like to collect them? Yes I would. would I charge for it? Nope, afterall assuming I didn't mess up I was going to come away with a little colony of bees. Saves them a job, saves the old chap some money, saves the bees lives, avoids a few millilitres of pesticides being used and gets me some bees. Everyone's a winner :) I got my stuff together, rang the chap, the bees had been there for 8 days so far.. Aided by Satnav I went to see the bees.

I've never actually collected a swarm before but I've read a lot about it and watched a lot of youtube videos on the subject so had a pretty good idea how to go about it. Basically you put a box above the cluster of bees and smoke them up into then put them in your hive, or you put the box or a sheet below and cut whatever branch they're on and pop them into your hive.
 

Looks simple enough

They were clustered on a fence about a foot above the ground so I decided to put the box above the bees and smoke them up into it. Unfortunately these bees didn't know as much about swarm catching as I thought I did and instead of going up into the box they ran down to the bottom of the fence.

Lying down and using my phone's built in torch (what will they think of next?) I had a look under the fence. I was slightly puzzled because there suddenly seemed to be a lot less bees. Looking at the small cluster I found they'ed been making comb. There was about three inches of pure white comb with stored nectar. I cut this out then resumed my examination of the shrinking bee colony. There was a few inches gap between the fence and the back of the neighbour's shed. They were in that gap. I realised that the bees I'd seen first, in the photo above, were only part of the cluster so the good news was more bees. Not being able to reach them was a little inconvenient though. Eventually I came up with a plan. I'd like to say a cunning plan but it was probably an obvious one really.

Putting the nucleus with five drawn frames vertically against the fence, propped up with stones from the garden wall and topped with the roof I aimed a few puffs of smoke behind the fence.

Blowing smoke behind the fence

I got quite a roar from the swarm clustered back there. Yup more bees than I'd thought. I gave them a lot more smoke. I wanted to drive them forward through the gaps in the fence and into the nuc. They were starting to come through the gaps. Puffing smoke through the fence all around the nuc there was nowhere else for them to go -plus there was the pull of the drawn comb, some honey in it and the lemongrass oil.

"We're in this box! Come on!"

Eventually I was able to see workers  at the edge of the nuc nosanoving. Nosawhating now? Oh sorry. Bees have a scent gland called a Nosanov Gland at the tip of the abdomen. It makes a scent they use to let other bees know where the colony is. You can see there's an upside down bee in the picture above with her abdomen at a funny angle and her wings a blurr as she wafts scent. When I couldn't see any more bees looking down the gaps in the fence I lifted the nuc roof and found a mass of bees in it at the end that'd been towards the fence. Setting that down I pulled back the nuc and stood it upright. There were more bees in there and on the frames tops nearest the roof cluster.

Removing the middle two frames I took the roof and turned it over, with the cluster above the gap left by the removed  frames, and gently dealt it a sound wallop with the base of my fist then another. Glad I made the thing so strong now. That knocked all the bees but two into the nuc. I brushed out the pair of stragglers and carefully replaced the two frames. After a little smoke and application of the bee brush I put the crownboard and roof on and tied the whole thing up with a pretty blue bow.

In the box.

Well okay so it was a ratchet strap not a bow. I stood the nuc with it's entrance open close to the site the bees had been gathered and left it till about half past ten in the evening. That meant adding another trip to Bilton and back to my day but it gave any foraging bees or others who were still flying time to come and rejoin the colony in the nuc before I took it away. I let the chap know I was gong to come back when it was cooler and darker to take them away and he pressed me to accept a tenner for my fuel which I did. I returned after dark, blocked the entrance and slowly drove the colony home.

I'd seen and heard some big noisy drones whilst hiving the colony but hadn't see the queen at all during the exercise and there were no eggs in the comb they'ed built. There's always a chance they didn't have one, and if they did there's the chance I somehow squished her or that the bees got annoyed during the operation and killed her themselves. However when I got my stethoscope to the hive today I heard a high pitched noise which I think was a virgin queen piping so I suspect I managed to get her and just have to wait and see if she manages to mate now. That means leaving them alone for a fortnight. I may give them a feeder depending on the weather but there was already some food in the frames I gave them and I was able to see foragers coming and going today. When I open the hive in a fortnight I'll have to check for disease and varroa mite levels. It was a little trial and error and could have gone more smoothly but I think it went quite well, didn't even damage a plant.