Started with one swarm caught two years ago, split it last year into 3 hives last year, one died this last winter, the two remaining both swarmed here on the 1st and 3rd of may and I caught them.
One swarm stayed in the hive for 4 days before it left, we made 4 splits off the two original hives on May 4th, we caught another swarm last week on a post out in the pasture, and another we caught on a tree at a neighbors place just the day before yesterday.
Checked all (except the last swarm) the hives today and all but one had queens, eggs, and good looking brood.
The one that didn’t have a queen (something happened to the two queens in the queen cells that were capped when I did the split, killed each or something) had a bunch of eggs laid by laying workers (5-15 eggs per cell in the honey cells, in the pollen and brood cells), so put in another frame full of brood that had a bunch of eggs from one of the two original hives to get a new queen going and that would make it 9 hives.
Found weird looking pompom things on some of the bee’s feet and it evidently is just anthers that stuck to the bee.
Looking at making spots to attract miner bees and leaf cutter bees. For some reason Miner Bees are the top bee pollinating Georgia apple orchards at 4 locations. We have plenty of Carpenter Bees. Honey bees are on an off again as commercial hives move. Often not here early. Or sometimes in the 100’s of thousands in winter months working maple trees.
Hoverflies are a great polination asset for days too gloomy for bees.
Usually I just take a empty hive, put it right under the swarm that just landed and then sweep them into the hive and put the lid on. If they are on a small enough tree branch I cut it off and hold it above the hive that I take a couple frames out of and hit the branch knocking them into the hive and put the lid on.
A hive with laying workers won’t raise a queen. The easiest way to deal with them is to unite a queenright colony with the laying working hive then - if you want another colony - split them at a later date. We are far enough into the season now that I would not recommend a split until next year.
How to unite the laying worker hive? Easiest way is to shake all the bees off the frames of the laying worker colony and give the frames to a queenright hive nearby. Most of the bees will try to join the queenright colony which will kill any laying workers. If you need details, I can give a step by step process that is usually successful.
Hmm, I was wondering if laying workers would mess up the pheromone signals in the hive from trying to raise a new queen, thanks for the clarification. The frame of brood I did take from the big hive did have a capped queen cell though (I’m expecting it to still try swarming again), or else I would have just recombined it with another hive if I wasn’t seeing capped queen cells in that hive.
I’ve never seen a swarm in my life. I have always assumed people who catch swarms are because they have honeybees already and thier own bees swarmed or someone in thier known area has bees. There’s no catching swarms if there’s no bees around.
