A Tale of Two Swarms, part 1

On the last day of school (the 18th) we were out celebrating with a trip to our favorite game store, Game Matrix, when we received a call from the swarm committee asking us if we wanted to go capture a swarm up near the Narrows. Our first swarm capture! Yes!

We ran home, grabbed our gear and headed out. The swarm was in a large bush/small tree in a front yard, only needed a stepping stool to get to it, but it was in among the twisted branches. The homeowner allowed us to do some pruning, but we really didn't want to hack away to much of the tree as it would have left a large hole.

Forgot to take a before pic, this is after we had gotten most of the swarm out of the tree.

We cut out a couple of branches, then wedged the nuc box under the swarm. Charlie gave the branch a good whack, while Hannah supported the nuc from below (nothing quite like having bees rain down on you), we got about half (including the queen) of the swarm into the box. Then there was brushing and waiting, much waiting, while all the bees that went flying from the whack settled back into the box.

There was a screened window right by where we were retrieving the swarm, so it felt like we were putting on a bit of a performance. The kids had lots of good questions and the homeowners were really excited about the bees being saved.

We took the plug out of the nuc, put the lid on, and let the homeowners know we would be back in a couple of hours to collect the bees, after they had all settled into the box. Since Charlie has to be to work at 3.30am, we needed to get him home and to bed. 

Hannah and I headed back out to collect the bees just before dusk. When we arrived the bees had cooperated, no bees clustered in the tree. Hannah shooed the few that were around the entrance into the box and plugged the hole. We handed the homeowners a jar of honey and we were good to go with the swarm tucked in the back of the truck.

That night while chatting with the swarm coordinator it came to light that I had neglected to place a couple of frames in the nuc box and the bees could suffocate. Hannah and I went out to the truck with a red light (apparently white light at night "pisses them off") and opened the nuc to place 2 frames in it. That was terrifying, I had images of bees bubbling out of the box and not being able to get them back in, but all was fine. 

The next day Hannah placed the swarm into a green hive, so we are calling it Dill. Okay, I wanted to call it Euphorbia, but no one else liked that name, so I was out voted.