Tag Archives: swarm

Jul 6 2013

The Trap is Set…….Bee Fishing

Jess and I put out a swarm trap this year. Hard to say if it will work but here are the specifics.

Swarm season in the Pacific Northwest starts in May and runs through August depending on the weather and the nectar flow. Since this is the season we figured it could not hurt to try. We used one of the swarm traps that is available from several places…we got ours from Brushy Mountain. It is made of a wood pulp type product so will wear out over time and weather. We mounted it to a piece of 2′ x 2′ plywood that I cut a handle into the top and some strap notches in the sides. The goal here is to be able to hang it from a nail (if driving a nail is appropriate) or using nylon straps to strap it around a tree trunk.

Swarm Trap in SeabeckI read lots of opinions on how to place the trap, which direction to face and how high it should be off the ground. You can get frozen in the thought process….my recommendation is just pick a place and run with it. There is always next year to try a new location. I’ve also had several stories within our club, West Sound Beekeepers Association, in which a swarm decided to move into a hive that happened to be empty but still in the yard…so I think the bees pretty much figure things out on their own.

Our hive is facing south east, so the morning sun hits the entrance and it is hanging from a nail on a post about 5 feet off the ground. I did put a piece of comb on the inside so that the smell would permeate the trap.

Stay tuned, if we catch a swarm I’ll let you know.

As you can see based on the post date it is July, we actually hung the trap the first part of June, I just didn’t get around to making a post until now. As the season wears on I’m less excited about a swarm…an old poem tells the tale:

A swarm in May is worth a rick of hay.

A swarm in June, worth a silver spoon.

A swarm in July isn’t worth a fly

I think the sentiment here is the later in the season a swarm sets up shop in a new home, the less time there is for them to draw out new comb and stock pile resources for the winter. If we were to catch one now I might just combine it back into a weaker colony.

Building a foundation for your beehives
Jun 17 2012

Bees, you can’t eat just one….

I think I might have the Lays Potato chip syndrome when it comes to bees. I started out with two hives, after all, that is what all the books say to do. This way you can compare one to the other and get a better understanding of bees and how they live. That was in class #1. It is only in class #6 do you learn about swarming.

Swarming is a colonies natural instinct to ensure survival of the colony and despite man’s best efforts you will usually have a swarm in at least some of your hives. So, this means I should probably have a couple of hive bodies and some frames set aside just in case I come home from work one day to a buzzing mass of beemanity in my yard (read more likely my neighbors yard) and have some plan in place to deal. It is a natural extension that if I have to add a hive I’m going to need someplace to keep it….so here is a list of what I did and how I set up two more foundations. This is very similar to setting up my original two but these are a little bigger. You can read that post by clicking here.

The reason these foundations are bigger is because I’ve decided to go with 8 frame westerns as I expand my apiary. I purchased a nuc from brushy mountain and 5 unassembled western 8 frame boxes from Mann Lake. I think this will allow maximum flexibility with dealing with a swarm and swapping frames from hive to hive if I need to. To accomodate the larger hives here is my parts list for two foundations:

4 16x16x2 cement pavers

8 8X16X6 concret blocks

Left over bag of sand from my first two foundations

I like to use the 16×16 pavers because they are easier to level, then put the concret blocks on top to give me a little height and to allow me to run a web strap over the hive and through the concret blocks. This will add some stability in the winter time when the winds pick up.

So this year I may end up with 3 or 4 hives….what happens next year if say 2 or 3 of the hives swarm….there you go….you can’t eat just one 🙂

 

May 11 2012

Honeybees with mad cow disease?

No, these honeybees do not have mad cow disease….they are doing what is known as a waggle dance.

Bees use the waggle dance to communicate the location of food or lodging to her colony mates. As they circle you will see them waggle in a specific direction. The top of the circle, or 12 o’clock, is the location of the sun. So if they are waggling to the left of 12 o’clock the direction they are communicating is to the left of the sun. If they are waggling say at 2 o’clock then she is telling her nest mates that there is food at about a 45 degree angle to the right of the current position of the sun.  The length and veracity of the dance communicate the quality of the food source as well as the distance to the food.

Waggle dances are also used to communicate the new location of a nesting site when a colony swarms. If you took the time, and had the inclination to snuggle up to a swarm you would be able to watch as several bees fly back to the swarm and begin doing different waggle dances as they try to win over their sisters as to which location is best suited for the swarm. They have already made a recon flight, found what seems to be a good location based on factors like, entrance size and size of the cavity, made their way back to the swarm and begun telegraphing this information to the others in the swarm through the dance. You would also be able to watch other bees take note of the dance and fly out to look at the proposed location for themselves. As time goes by more and more of the bees become convinced that one of the locations is better than the rest, at which point the swarm moves as a whole, protecting the queen as they move to their new digs.

Honeybee Democracy by Dr. Thomas D. Seeley makes for a great read on this whole fascinating topic.