# My 2021 Swarm Adventures



## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 7 - I have been fooled again by heavy scouting. My trap from yesterday did not have a swarm in it. Luckily I checked as soon as I got it home last night, so I was ready to have it back in the tree before the scouts realized it was ever gone.

I also got a call to do a cutout from under the eves on a house. It was a 40 minute drive each way and took 7 hours total. I won’t say it was pretty with 17 stings and honey raining down on me. But I did get all the bees out. The space included a very nice 3/4 inch wide crevice between 2 beams. This is, of course where the bees ran to hide. Getting them out would have been impossible without the Robovac that I built over the winter. This was the first time using it. I need a better seal between layers, because I was unable to get suction without taping all the way around the screen layer. I walked away with a bucket of honey, a bucket of old, black come for my bait hives, 5 nice frames of mostly capped brood, and a box of bees.I’ll have to wait and see if I have the queen.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 9 - Okay, the swarm season is officially here. Same date as last year, by the way. I got my first real swarm call this evening after sunset.

I’ve had some crazy swarm catching experiences after dark. The bees are all disoriented, half asleep, and probably too cold to fly. They end up crawling around in all directions if they don’t shake right into the box. None of their buddies are fanning nasonov, so its like hearding cats.

None of this was a problem with this swarm, which was in a tight ball at the end of a thin branch. It was up 15 feet or so, but only a few feet above a roof. I put a 5 gallon bucket onto the ball and snipped the branch. Not a single bee even broke cluster, nor did they when I dumped them into the hive box at home. Possibly my easiest swarm grab yet.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 13 - After 13 days of heavy scouting at the trap right in my new yard, a swarm appears to have arrived. I thought the scouting was particularly heavy and early this morning, but have been wary about getting too excepted - having already waited so long.

I left after lunch to check some other traps. I was only gone an hour. Sadly that was enough to miss the arrival. Here’s what it looked like when I got home.









By the way I am pretty sure these are not my bees. I did am inspection yesterday and found that my hive has plenty of space to grow. I have also been watching the scouts. They were flying away, not heading back to my existing hive.

I have another trap set within sight of this one - only about 10 yards away. It has also has heavy scouting traffic, and I have wondered whether it could be the same swarm investigating both traps. The other trap still has plenty of scouts, so hopefully that one works out too.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 14 - one of the last traps I placed was at my daughter’s friend’s house. The friend texted my daughter on the 12th to say that the bees had arrived. Because both my daughter and her friend are teenagers, it was impossible to learn what she meant by that. From the level of excitement, I figured it was likely a few scout bees. This evening I went over to see for myself. The box was buzzing loudly and it’s heavy. Seems like a pretty big swarm. I’ll take a look tomorrow.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 15 - I got a call from a couple that had been trying for 2 days to coax a swarm to leave their yard. They tried all kinds of herbal repellants, and eventually decided to call a beekeeper. I went over and collected most of the bees from one of those viney arbors in about 15 minutes, but because there were so many bees tangled in the vines and buzzing around, and because the place was less than 2 miles from my house, i decided to leave the box and come back later. When I returned after dusk, all of the bees were in the box. Easy.

This swarm is about the size of a softball, so it’s probably going to need some help to building up. The queen may not even be mated.









Update on the 4/14 trap catch. The swarm turned out to be smaller than I expected. It is certainly descent-sized, but the weight I was feeling was due largely to the 2 bait frames being mostly full of nectar.

I transferred the bees into a regular 10 frame box this morning. This may have been a mistake. The bees were especially disoriented and took a long time settling back into the box. I was worried that many of them might drift to nearby colonies. I also worried that the queen had flown out, because I had a good size cluster on the fence above the box. Placing the bait frame (I had removed for use in resetting the trap) next to the box helped to draw the bees down and then into the box. After 30 minutes everything looked back to normal.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 16 - I sometimes have a hard time believing that the scouts at the traps in my yard are not my own bees. My bees are not ready to swarm, but maybe they are just curious - like how they are always flying into my garage as soon as I open the door. Well, I have a hive box set as a swarm trap on my roof. It has been getting heavy scouting traffic for a couple of weeks. 2 days ago the scouting was particularly heavy. Then, yesterday it completely stopped. I haven’t seen a bee around that trap in 24 hours. Nothing has changed with my bees, except that I have been adding more colonies. This would seem to validate that the scouts that had been there were not just my bees looking around. I also have a trap on the rack right next to my other hives and only 10 yards from the one on the roof. The trap in the rack continues to have several bees poking in and out all the time.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 17 - Remember the swarm from April 9 that I collected without a single bee breaking cluster when I grabbed it, and when I dumped it into the box? Well, how does a swarm like that end up without a queen a week later? 

That’s the situation I found today. No eggs, but 5 emergency cells on the donor frame I put in from a different hive.

I would not have thought - from the size of the swarm - that this was anything other than a prime swarm, but the only thing I can come up with is that this was a virgin queen swarm and the queen did not make it home from mating flights.

I also looked in on the cutout hive. No eggs there either, but there were 3 capped emergency cells and a couple of other uncapped ones. I was starting to feel pretty confident that I didn’t have the queen and was ready to combine these bees with other hives. I still doubt the viability of these cells, but I decided to give them a chance. I moved 2 frames with cells into a 2 frame mating nuc and will see if a mated queen is produced. Meanwhile, I took the other 3 frames with adherent bees and moved 2 to the tiny swarm from 2 days ago. That probably tripled the population of that hive. I moved the other frame and bees to the swarm caught in my yard earlier this week. The queen castle is in the original location, so it will receive all the field bees back


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 18 - I went out to check the traps today and decided to also look at a park I had not been to before, but where I thought might be a good place to set another trap. I spotted a nice, big oak tree at the far end of the park and went over to take a closer look. I guess I’m starting to think like a bee when it comes to identifying good hive locations, because my tree was already occupied. I almost didn’t notice, because I was looking up, but right at ground level there was an opening with bees coming and going.

I’m not sure I have ever found a bee tree on my own before.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

And...now you know a good place to set a trap...


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 19 - I have failed for the first time to catch a swarm I was called to. This was the biggest swarm I have seen in quite some time, but it was 65 feet up as measured by my drone, not 30-40 feet as described by the home owner.









This photo is taken from the skinny side. It actually extends back along the branch. So, it’s 3 or 4 times as big as it looks here.

Anyway, I climbed about 30 feet up the tree, but the branches were pretty sketchy, and I guess I’m just getting too old.









I ended up leaving a trap. I hope the bees move in or at least move lower down so I can grab them. The problem is that this one is a 45 minute drive away, so I can’t spend any more time checking in.

by the way, I tried tanging for several minutes to absolutely no effect.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 20 - Not much of an adventure today, just a nice small swarm on a branch at eye level.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 21 - I was checking a trap today when the property owner bordering the park where the trap is located came out to ask me if I knew anything about the trap. I said I did and offered to answer any of his questions. He started telling me about how a week ago his cherry tree was absolutely full of bees and there were bees all over the side of my trap. It really sounded to me like maybe a swarm had settled in his tree and then moved to my trap - even though he didn’t see a cluster.

As far as I can tell, the trap is not occupied, at least not by a large colony, although there are quite a few bees scouting it. The bees I see seem to bee circling and investigating, not heading straight in and out.

Anyway, hearing this history really made me wonder about all that goes on at a trap that we never even know about, because we aren’t around to see it. It also makes me wonder why a swarm would have moved in and then moved right back out. I am worried about overpowering the bees with LGO, so I am very careful about limiting the dose. and it had been about a month since I baited the trap, so I feel like it had plenty of time to mellow.


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## elmer_fud (Apr 21, 2018)

Cobbler said:


> Anyway, hearing this history really made me wonder about all that goes on at a trap that we never even know about, because we aren’t around to see it. It also makes me wonder why a swarm would have moved in and then moved right back out. I am worried about overpowering the bees with LGO, so I am very careful about limiting the dose. and it had been about a month since I baited the trap, so I feel like it had plenty of time to mellow.


I think I have seen posts on here mentioning swarms leaving swarm traps when they were to small for the swarm. I wonder if it was something like this


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

elmer_fud said:


> I think I have seen posts on here mentioning swarms leaving swarm traps when they were to small for the swarm. I wonder if it was something like this


That could be, but it would take quite a swarm to find a 40 liter trap too small. I am even sadder if that’s what happened.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 22 - I got a call for the biggest swarm yet this year. It was great - large, only 10 miles away, and close enough to the ground that I didn’t need a ladder or any other equipment to reach it.









However, there were some pretty strange things about this swarm. It was on the outside of a chimney in which an established hive is living. The swarm was only a couple of feet from the entrance to the hive. It may be the close proximity that made the bee’s behavior unusual. After scooping the bees off the wall, the remaining bees never really got the message to move into the box. Even when I put the opening of the box next to a gathering clump, they didn’t make any movement toward the box. Some bees even started heading toward the opening of the established hive before turing around and hanging out in between the hive and my box. In the end, I had to physically move all the stragglers into the box.

The other big question is where these bees came from. The chimney had been occupied years ago, but the landlord had it sprayed. The result was a stench that made the basement of the house uninhabitable. The bees were gone for a couple of years, but showed up again just a week or so ago. Because of that short time and the large size of the swarm, I don’t think that this swarm was cast from the hive in the chimney. I don’t have a good explanation for why the swarm lit so close to an established hive, regardless of where it was cast from.

By the way, I also don’t think that these bees were forced out of the chimney by maybe exposing a pocket of old pesticide, because the traffic at the opening looked heavy and regular for what I’d expect from a healthy hive.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Cobbler said:


> a 40 liter trap too small.


50-60 liter sizing is better - pretty much a catch all.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 27 - A different adventure today. I got a call from a police officer who had responded to a call about a swarm of bees. The city doesn’t actually do anything about bee swarms, but they do have my number. I got the number of the older lady who made the report and gave her a call. I couldn’t tell from what she told me whether the bees were living in the tree or whether there was a swarm cluster hanging from the tree. When I got out there and saw what I was dealing with, it started making sense. It was kind of both.










I have never seen anything quite like this. There was what looks like a decent size swarm on the outside of the tree, but there were also a lot of bees walking in full of pollen. I understand bearding, but, like I said, this is a decent size swarm worth of beers, and it was barely 60° When I got there around noon after a fairly cool night. None of my hives or any of the bee trees I watch look anything like this.

I scraped off the clustered bees revealing the hive entrance.








You can see from the propolis and traffic marks that the bees spend a lot of time on the outside of the hive. And a neighbor told me that this is how they always look.

I figured with that many bees bearding that they were working up to a swarm. I decided to take the couple of pounds of bees I scraped to boost the swarm from April 20. After giving the bees a couple of hours to start realizing they are queenless, I set the bucket they are in on top of the queenright hive and made a small opening for a slow, gradual transition.

Has anyone seen something like this?


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 28 - Swarm season is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get. We’ve had several days of cloudy and cool, but we had sunny and 70’s today. I knew there was going to be some pent up pressure to make a move. I was right about that. I got 3 calls. Sadly, I have no new hives out of it.

The first one was huge, but it was a 45 minute drive. Luckily I was giving a beekeeping lesson to a newbie when the call came in. If I had left immediately, I would have been 10 minutes out when the guy called to say they had left.









The second one was close by, but not close enough. The guy called me back a few minutes later to say they had moved. It wasn’t huge, but still a real decent swarm that would have taken a little work to scrape off a thick limb.










The third call was from a guy that inherited an old, empty hive box when he bought his house several years ago. He had it all set up and had been hoping for years that a swarm would move in. Funny how people who want bees end up getting them. Today a swarm arrived and lit on his grape vine post. He saw my ad on Craigslist and called to ask if I would hive it for him. I can’t resist catching a swarm, even if I don’t get to keep it. So, he has a nice little swarm to start his beekeeping adventure.










Tomorrow is going to be even warmer. Hopefully I earned some good karma today that will spill over to tomorrow.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 29 - I guess that good karma I hoped for yesterday came. I had another 3-call day and all of them worked out this time - sort of.

I would have been happy if the day had ended after just the first one. This was probably the second biggest swarm I have ever caught - the kind you bring a 10-frame box for - no messing around with nuc boxes. It was 20 feet up in a tree, but that’s an easy reach with my extension pole and bucket - no ladder required. I got most of them with the first bump, let the stragglers reconvene, bumped them again, then left the box for the rest to find. I received 2 more calls while I was there, so I couldn’t wait around for stragglers. In all, it only took about 10 minutes. 

















Then I was off to the local Mini Dealership where they had a small secondary swarm maybe the size of 2 grapefruits. This one was 4 feet off the ground on the end of a maple twig. Total time about 3 minutes.









Then I was off to the third call with the mini swarm riding along in the van. Bees were leaking out of the box the whole drive and continued to escape while I was working on the third swarm. At some point, I thought it might be a good idea to let the escapees back into the box, so I removed the screen plug. That wasn’t the best idea, because they started pouring out pretty quickly. I figured it was already too late, so I just let them go back in while I continued to work. I kept checking back on them to see how they were doing, and it looked like they were just hovering around the box, and largely going back inside. However, when I got home and looked inside, there were only about 20 bees left. So, that was a total loss. Still, I wonder weather it was a mistake to open the box before getting home. If they were determined to leave, I’m not sure it would have mattered if I had brought them home before opening the entrance. I didn’t have a frame of brood to give them, so I’m not sure what else I could have done. This is really the first time I have ever had a swarm leave once I hived them.

Anyway the 3rd swarm turned out to be a real ordeal. It was about 35 feet up in a fir tree. I tried my ladder/extension pole combination, but came up a few feet short. I moved on to throwing a baseball with a string tied on over the branch and giving it is good shake. The bees fell, but with that much height, they took flight before hitting the ground - returning to the original branch. Eventually, I got the idea to just keep that branch shaking until the bees gave up trying to land there. This was a pretty good workout, but it did work. After a while the biggest part of the clump was on the next branch down, which was in range with the ladder and extension pole. There were quite a few bees that never gave up on the higher spot, and as the sun was sinking low and the string over the branch broke, I gave up on them. I got enough bees to fill a five frame nuc very well, but I’ll have to wait a few days to learn whether I got the queen. 

I also wonder whether the bees from the mini swarm joined the third swarm. It was a pretty short distance between the two and I do feel like the swarm I got was bigger than I expected. Although it was so far up, it was hard to really judge the size


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

April 30 - last fall I gave the last swarm I caught to a friend who had lost the queen in his one hive. It was a 5-frame nuc at that point. And after combining with his doomed hive, there were about seven good frames of bees going into winter. Yesterday he called to tell me that his 20-frame hive was suddenly full of bees and there were swarm cells everywhere. He is strictly limited to one hive, so his best idea was to let nature take its course, hope to see the swarm leave and then call me to come catch it. I recommended a more preventative approach.

So today’s swarm adventure was different than most - a forced swarm split.

The hive was indeed packed with bees. In addition, it was pretty nearly completely honeybound with barely an empty cell anywhere. With so many bees and a scattered brood nest, it was difficult to find the queen, but I did get her on the 17th frame we checked on the second pass through all the frames.

I brought the queen and 2 frames of brood and resources, plus 2 shakes of nurse bees home. I’m glad to have such a great queen back in my yard.

We added a couple of empty frames and a super to the original hive. I’m hoping that the queen cells will work out and meanwhile all those bees will pack in a ton of honey with no brood to feed until the new queen starts laying.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 2 - I know I am a little too obsessed with chasing the wild bees. I think about it all the time, and lately I have been thinking that something is wrong with my traps. Other than the one in my own yard, I only had one other trap catch this year. I had been wondering if maybe I had contaminated the boxes with something offensive. Maybe it was the beeswax/olive oil/LGO mixture I had been smearing on the boxes to refresh the LGO without adding any LGO inside the box. It’s a nice idea. In theory, the gel-like concoction should stick to the box without running off like LGO and also release the scent in a slow, long-lasting way. However, in reality, the scent doesn’t last long and the olive oil starts to smell a little rancid. Could this be keeping the bees away?

Well, today I checked 7 traps and found 2 of them occupied. This goes a long way in reminding me to be patient and not overthink it.

I brought one trap home. This is the one where the neighbor told me that a swarm had arrived a couple of weeks ago - then apparently left. Nice to know that this trap is not defective, more likely just a picky swarm.

Anyway, I couldn’t resist cracking the lid when I got home. This got me stung, but it was worth it. The view from the top showed all seams on the 5 frame double deep box completely full. Looks like a nice sized prime swarm.

On a different note, I have recently come to recognize the smell of venom pheromone. It’s kind of a pleasant smell, not what I would guess from the name.

And as a final post script, last week I created a new LGO delivery system. It’s basically the same as before, minus the olive oil and poured into an empty chapstick tube. Because there is no other oil, I used a much larger proportion of LGO to soften the beeswax. There are about 50 drops of LGO in the chapstick container. This is probably a little too much and the finished product consistency is a little too soft. I will try 40 drops of LGO next time. I have been dabbing a bit of this stick on the outside of my boxes as I check them this week.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 4 - all that warm weather last week that resulted in 6 swarm calls also resulted in some success at the traps. In addition to the 2 catches in the 7 traps I checked May 2, I found another 2 in the 6 traps I checked today. One of them had a ton of pollen coming in,so it must have been there a while. I brought one more trap home this evening and will see what’s in there in the morning.

I also have to admit a mistake. Yesterday I opened the trap I brought home May 2 and removed the bait frame. I find that swarms typically like to draw out their own comb and lay there first. The bait comb is less desirable to them. I am always short on the stuff, so if I want to redeploy a trap, I have to get that bait comb out of there before the bees start using it.

Anyway, the bait comb had a little light nectar in it, but was not heavily used. I shook the bees off and set it just outside the trap where the bees could get at the nectar and bring it back into to the hive. When I came back a couple of hours later, there were a ton of bees clustered on the rack and on the ground below the trap, plus lots of bees in the air. I tried to scoop the bees back into the box, but they were insistent on going back to the outside cluster. Eventually I moved most of the bees to form a cluster on the top of the box. This made it possible to notice the queen lying on the ground - moving, but not what I would call vigorous. She was the smallest queen I have ever seen. I assume she was a virgin, but I am surprised she was traveling with such a large swarm. I would have thought it was a prime swarm from the size. I put her in a clip and back into the hive. After that, the bees quickly re-entered the hive. This morning I checked on the queen and found her barely moving. I have decided to dispatch her and combine these bees with another hive that could really use a boost in workers. I am sad about this, because these bees are kind of interesting. They have very light yellow, fuzzy thoraxes. This makes it look like most of the bees are carrying pollen when you see them in a bunch. It would have been nice to see what else that genetic line had to offer. But, I screwed up. The queen was probably on the frame I removed from the trap, and I didn’t check well enough. I should have been more patient with such a fresh swarm.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 7 - Not exactly a swarm, because it was already established, but not actually a cutout, because I didn’t cut anything.

I got a call to remove a hive from a cable box. The home owner said the bees had moved in maybe years ago, but he had never gotten around to doing anything about it. Now, the bees were in his way. I didn’t see any evidence that the bees had been there any more than a few days. There was a small amount of very white comb in the lid of the box, and but the homeowner had removed the lid 2 days earlier in an attempt to persuade the bees to leave. When I got there, there was just a bunch of bees huddled below the ground level. 
















They were so meshed in with the wires that I couldn’t even tell how big the cluster was. There was nothing to do but vacuum. It was a nice, clean, dry job and a good second opportunity to use my Robovac. There were so few bees that I didn’t even use a hive body. I just vacuumed them into the robovac bottom and lid.

when I got home, I set the bees up in a 2-frame mating nuc, which was more than enough space for this small colony. I’m not sure I got the queen, although I got very nearly every bee. I am worried that this might even be a virgin queen swarm and the queen may not have survived her mating flights.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 9 - You know what they say - a Swarm in the box is worth two in the bush. It seems like I’ve had a lot of calls this year where the bees had moved on before I got there. That was the case today. I guess that’s just how it goes.

On the bright side, I stopped to check one of my traps on the way home and found it occupied. I caught three swarms in this location last year, and I had been feeling anxious about not having even one there yet this year.

Also that tiny swarm from the cable box on May 7 does have a queen and she is laying, so no worries about that anymore. However, the colony is barely big enough to work the half frame of drawn come I gave it. I need to figure out whether I have some brood to spare to help boost this hive, or maybe this is a replacement queen for that first swarm of the season, which is still not laying, although I saw the queen today, and she looks just fine. Maybe I don’t have any resources to invest in this colony, but it could grow with limited help into a productive hive next year.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 10 - Crazy story, But it’s a good one, so I hope you don’t mind me spilling some ink. A week ago I was riding my bike on a trap checking route when I noticed A woman watching a beehive on the ground right next to the road. I stopped and asked her if she had just caught a swarm, which she had. She told me that she was hosting a beehive, but that the colony had died years earlier and the beekeeper was too busy to have done anything about it. Then, in the spring of 2020, a swarm moved into the hive. That colony had lived there last year without anyone ever having opened the hive. It had swarmed about a week earlier, and she decided that she would become a real beekeeper. So, even though the swarm flew off, she ordered a hive on Amazon and was ready to catch the second swarm on that day last week. I gave her my phone number and offered to answer any questions she might have.

today, she called to say that there were two new swarms. She had watched them issue. Since I had last spoken with her, She had decided to keep two beehives and had ordered and received the second hive. She wanted help hiving one swarm and wanted me to take the other one.

as we were just finishing that plan, the next-door neighbors poked there heads over the fence and said that there was a lot of bee activity in their yard. We went back and found a Third Swarm, Which I also hived.

With the swarm we put in her box, we decided it would be best if we could find and cage the queen, because this new hive would be right next-door to the original hive, and I thought that might make the swarm more likely to leave again. For this reason, we dumped the bees on a board in front of the hive and watched them march in. I was able to find the queen, and we put her in a clip inside the hive. While I was catching that third swarm, the bees on the board in front of the hive stopped walking in, and diverted to the hive next-door, which was the sister hive from the week earlier, not the original hive. By the time I was done catching the third swarm there were only maybe 100 bees left with the queen in the new box.

after thinking about the best way to handle that situation, I finally settled on the idea of breaking into the original, unmanaged hive to steal bees and resources for this sparsely attended queen.

by the way, there was also a swarm six days ago, which they were unable to catch, because their new equipment hadn’t yet arrived so the three swarms we caught today we’re actually number four, five, and six this year.

when I opened the original hive, I found at least a dozen hatched, not torn down, queen cells. Plus there were at least 15 more unhatched queen cells. One of the cells was even hatching out as I pulled the frame. And, I found one queen who flew away when I tried to corner her. First time I have ever seen a flying queen.

I had the thought that perhaps this hive is a good representation of why wild bees are able to survive without management and mite control. There were almost more queen cells in this hive than worker brood. Talk about a brood break. I went looking for brood to give to that young queen, but there was next to none to be found. This hive generated at least six swarms this year. It is likely to generate several more in the next week or so. Meanwhile there is no place for a mite to reproduce.

Anyway, that’s another 3-swarm day, even though it’s only two new swarms for me.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 13 - I got a swarm call first thing this morning. 8 feet up in an arborvitae bush. Easy 5 minute grab and only a 10 minute drive.








This was 0.9 miles away from one trap and 0.25 miles from another. I checked both of those while I was in the neighborhood and found both occupied. Maybe this is a sister from one of those swarms.

I also got a call from a friend that had big swarm in his tree last year. This year I put a trap in that tree. He called me all excited about bees surrounding his motorcycle. I thought I was going for a swarm, but when I got there, they were all filing nicely into my trap.

I could have had one more if a friend of my wife had called instead of emailing. My wife didn’t see the email until a couple of hours later and another beekeeper was already on his way.

So I now have at least 6 swarms in traps, but not enough space or equipment to bring them home yet. I’ll have to let them be for now.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 14 - My daughter’s friend (first trap swarm of the season) called to say that their trap was occupied again. That’s the second location with 2 swarms this year. I went and retrieved this trap this evening, because I don’t want any of my hosts to have any reason to be annoyed by the bees.

I also found another trap occupied. That makes 7 out of 20 traps occupied and remaining in the forest until I can make some space in the yard.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 16 - I found another trap occupied. This is the third trap that has caught 2 swarms this year. I still don’t have any space in my apiary, so I now have 8 out of 20 traps occupied and remaining in the forest.

Last year, I was able to sell some extra swarms as established nucs. This year, there has been little interest and no takers. I have an ad on Craigslist at $150. I’m the only one in town selling nucs. There’s are other nucs in neighboring regions fsellimg at $175-$200.

one other observation - both this year and last year I had a lot of swarm calls early on but few trap catches, then I had the reverse as the season progressed. I can’t figure out why this would be.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

You are having a very good swarming chasing year.
Good deal.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 21 - I brought home a trap that I thought had particularly high traffic. When I lifted the box off the tree I was a little surprised that it was so light and by how little noise the bees were making. But when I cracked it open today I found all five frames (including the bait frame) well drawn and full of eggs. This should be a good swarm.

I also inspected the swarms from that hive that cast 3 swarms in the same day. One is still in 3 frames, but the other had fully drawn and filled 5 frames. That seems like real decent progress for a swarm that was at least the 4th cast this year.

and finally a lesson I have learned this year. As you know swarms are an aging set of bees. By the time the first new bee pops out of her cocoon in the new hive, at least 21 days have passed and the swarm bees are now quite old and dying quickly. For this reason it is super helpful to give a swarm a frame of brood that will hatch out soon. And for this same reason a queenless swarm should not be allowed to raise its own queen. Unless you really have no other options, a queenless swarm should be combined with another hive. I had 2 swarms in that situation this year. In both cases I let nature take its course. The result is a new queen trying to eek out a hive with a handful of attendants. It is going to work out, but maybe in time to have 5 or 10 good frames of bees by winter. I wish I had folded all of these bees into other hives as soon as I knew there was no queen. I would have 2 strong hives now instead of four small hives that will be lucky to be ready for winter - let alone produce any honey this year.


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## gwb (May 17, 2020)

I caught swarms #9 and #10 today


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

gwb said:


> I caught swarms #9 and #10 today


2 in one day is always fun. It sounds like you’re having a great season too.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 23 - several days ago I was at a church activity when a friend came up to me excited to tell me about the beehive she had found living in a tree at the elementary school. My kids go to that school and have for years, so I was surprised to learn about about a wild bee tree in a place I have spent plenty of time. We’ve had several days of rain and poor weather, so I didn’t make it over to see the beehive until today. I wanted to find the beehive while there were plenty of bees flying.

I went to the spot my friend described, but didn’t see any trees big enough to have a cavity that could hold bees. eventually I did see some bees flying and found that I was not looking for a beehive at all, but rather for a Swarm. This one had been hanging there for a week now.









not a big swarm, but not my smallest Swarm this year. I don’t think these beers would have survived much longer, and if they didn’t find a home in the first week, they must’ve been running out of time.

This is A good reminder that people don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to bees. It’s a good idea to check things out.

and in Other news I found another trap occupied today. That’s number four with two catches in the same spot. And I’m back up to 8 swarms in 20 boxes still in the Forrest.


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## ProfessorBob (Jun 17, 2015)

Cobbler said:


> May 23 - several days ago I was at a church activity when a friend came up to me excited to tell me about the beehive she had found living in a tree at the elementary school. My kids go to that school and have for years, so I was surprised to learn about about a wild bee tree in a place I have spent plenty of time. We’ve had several days of rain and poor weather, so I didn’t make it over to see the beehive until today. I wanted to find the beehive while there were plenty of bees flying.
> 
> I went to the spot my friend described, but didn’t see any trees big enough to have a cavity that could hold bees. eventually I did see some bees flying and found that I was not looking for a beehive at all, but rather for a Swarm. This one had been hanging there for a week now.
> View attachment 63626
> ...


Really interesting postings. You are a busy man but enjoying it a lot I can tell!


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

sounds like adventure for sure.
as long as you enjoy it then keep up the charge.

may want to consider selling NUCs of "local bees"

good luck
GG


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Cobbler said:


> By the time the first new bee pops out of her cocoon in the new hive, at least 21 days have passed and* the swarm bees are now quite old and dying quickly.*


Not necessarily.
It is not a given axiom that the summer bees live very short lives.
What matters IF the bees took part in brood feeding or not.
Large portion of swarm bees *never *took part in brood feeding before they swarmed.
Thus they have rather long life left in them yet (for the summer bee life).


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

Gray Goose said:


> sounds like adventure for sure.
> as long as you enjoy it then keep up the charge.
> 
> may want to consider selling NUCs of "local bees"
> ...


Last year I sold several nucs and had no trouble finding buyers on Craigslist. This year, I haven’t found a single buyer. I did have a few calls and emails, but no follow through. I also tried the classifieds at the local bee club, but I wasn’t really interested in joining (paying dues) in order to post an ad. 

Any other recommendations? Where would you look if you were in the market for a nuc?


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

GregV said:


> Not necessarily.
> It is not a given axiom that the summer bees live very short lives.
> What matters IF the bees took part in brood feeding or not.
> Large portion of swarm bees *never *took part in brood feeding before they swarmed.
> Thus they have rather long life left in them yet (for the summer bee life).


I understand that. And that’s why I let 2 swarms make their own queens this year. My observation is that by the time a swarm raises a queen and she start laying, the population of the swarm has greatly decreased. By the time the new queen has daughters running around about 6 weeks have passed and the hive is in survival mode, not thriving.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 25 - in a little over a year I have caught close to 30 swarms in traps. Still, I don’t think I will ever stop being surprised that the traps actually work.

Today was cold and raining from time to time, but I decided to stop by one of my traps that I had not checked in 12 days. No activity at the trap. I was standing there thinking what a shame it was that nobody wants this beautiful home in this beautiful swamp when a handful of bees came flying in, and at the same time a handful of bees went flying out. I had arrived when there was a break in the traffic, but the trap was occupied.

That’s 9 colonies I have waiting to bring home.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

May 26 - I got my first swarm call in weeks today. Does it count as an adventure when the drive is only three miles, the swarm is chest height on a bush, and it takes longer to put on the veil than to make the grab?










I have been using a method lately that I read on bee source. The idea is to spray the cluster liberally with water. This makes the bees cluster up tighter and prevents them from flying. This works pretty well, and typically the cluster also slides out of the bucket and into the hive box with few bees taking flight too. Still, when I shook the bees off the branch a few more bees got airborne than I wanted. I put the lid on, but removed the small plug. It took just a couple of minutes for most of the airborne bees to fly in or rest on the bucket. I ended up driving home with a couple dozen bees just sitting on the outside of the lid.









And in other news, I have noticed in my hive inspections that this season I have caught a very large number of black queens. Last year I had almost all caramel colored queens and a couple of real yellow ones. I don’t know whether this means anything, but it seems statistically significant.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Like reading your swarm chasing adventures.
At least someone is having fun.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 1 - My daughter’s friend texted to say she thought her trap was occupied for the third time and had been for a week or so. She doesn’t purvey a lot of confidence on the subject, but I figured it was time to go see. I arrived when it was nearly dark and saw bees wandering around on the outside of the trap. I almost just closed it up and took it home, but decided to pop the lid and have a quick look. I’m glad I did, because the swarm had not arrived. There must have been at least a dozen bees spending the night. I wonder whether scout bees change their minds when someone pops the lid.

I had a replacement trap all ready to go, so I decided to retrieve a different trap on the way home. I guess I wasn’t ready to home home empty handed. By this time it was quite dark, but when I got to the next trap it was crawling with bees. There were dozens on the outside. There was nothing I could do to get them in, or even to staple my screen on the entrance. So, I did end up coming home empty handed anyway. Still I’m glad for this information that second trap must have a large swarm, and it needs to get home and into a permanent box soon. I don’t want to have to cut comb off the bottoms of the frames.

Oh, and I found another trap occupied today. That was another double and takes me back down to only 13 of 20 traps currently open for business.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 3 - Today was a real adventure - 2 swarms. Technically, the first call came in last night. What kind of crazy bees swarm as the sun is setting? A monster swarm the size of a watermelon, I guess. This one gave me another oprtunity to practice a technique I have been developing this year for when the bees are higher than about 30 feet - which is what I can reach on my ladder with an extension pole. The idea is to get a rope over the branch and shake the bees so they cluster up again on the next lower branch. This worked well, but I was still right at the limit of my reach. I couldn’t give them a good solid bump into my bucket. After several attempts, I was able to transfer about Half of the bees into my box. The other half remained in the tree. I was trying to figure out my next move when I noticed a lot of bees in the air. Apparently the cluster in the tree had gotten the message I queen was in the box, And they all wanted to go join her. It’s so satisfying when bees finally do what you want them to do.









ByThe time I got all my stuff cleaned up and enjoyed the show, the these were all in my box, and I headed home.

I got the beers put away just in time to get another call from a guy that said he had Swarm right in the middle of the road in front of his house. In my experience, a swarm on the ground means that the queen has been damaged and can no longer fly. I was expecting A small hardly viable Swarm. Luckily, that was not the case. This one was really too big to fit in a five frame nook. After working so hard up in a tree, it was nice to have an easy job down on the ground. I put the nuke box with a tiny bit of lemon grass oil and a frame of comb down next to the swarm and they all came running. It was maybe the best example of the B march I have ever seen. i’d post a video if I could figure out how.

I watched for the queen, but didn’t ever see her. I still think it’s highly possible that she is damaged. I may have to give these bees a new one.









The Photo is what it looked like After they ran out of space for any more bees to move in.

In both cases, the whole neighborhood turned out two enjoy the event. I think it’s great the way bees bring people together.

as I was finishing up the second job, one of the neighbors pulled in with her Portland urban beekeepers bumper sticker on her car. The neighbor that had called me apologized to her for not knowing how to contact her my phone. She had lost her bees over the winter and had several bait hives out. By the way this was only about 100 yards away from the Swarm I caught in the juniper bush May 26? She told me how she had a lot of scouts a week or so ago, and then all of a sudden nothing. She also said that she had A lot of scouting yesterday. I felt really bad for her - that I had taken two great swarms from her. But, as I was pulling away, she came hurrying up the street to let me know that she had a Swarm moving into her hive - bearding all over The front of her hive. It made my day to know that she had her swarm - a really nice looking one too.

I am guessing that all three of these swarms originated from the same wild bee tree. This is another one of those hives producing tons of bees to be able to produce multiple swarms this big.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 4 - I got a call for a tiny swarm 19 miles away. Because it was a referral from my best pest control referral guys, and because I talked the guy (commercial property) into buying my gas, and because I just can’t resist catching a swarm, I went for it. Maybe not the very smallest swarm of the year, but pretty close. Tennis ball sized on the ground under 2 2x6’s. Easy grab.










I should also give an update on the swarm on the road from yesterday. It turns out there was a reason I couldn’t get the last of the bees to go in the box. I guess I don’t have enough experience estimating the size of a flat swarm. This is what it looked like when I cracked the lid last night when I tried to put in some frames









Absolutely jam packed. I added a second 5x box last night and it still looked like this this morning.









And I checked 4 traps today. 2 were occupied, one I’m calling a maybe - lots of bees, but mulling about, not darting in and out. The last one had several scouts. One of the occupied traps looks like this.









There was no activity at all when I checked this trap on the 30th. What a shame to waste all that good comb building work. I’ll see how much I can save when I do the cutout tomorrow morning.

So what makes a swarm stay outside a trap? This one is in full shade and has 3 drops of LGO on cotton in a ziplock applied way back in March. I can’t imagine the smell is overwhelming. Ideas welcomed.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 5 - Update on the swarm on the outside of the trap. I went over to do the cut out - or should I call it a cut in? As soon as I climbed up the ladder I saw the queen walking around the outside of the cluster. I wasn’t even looking for her. She just popped out. I jumped off the ladder, grabbed my queen clip, and tried to catch her. I got stung, and that was enough to let her get away. I never saw her again, but the rest of the process went well.

When I popped the lid off, I was surprised to see quite a lot of bees inside the box along with 2 frames drawn about the size of my hand. And the bait frame was heavy with nectar. I barely had enough space on the remaining 2 frames to secure the biggest few pieces of comb from the bottom of the box.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

This reporting (thanks Cobble!) shows very well how the swarm chasing is also very much location dependent.
Some places some years can be choke full of swarms.
Other places are just not.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

GregV said:


> This reporting (thanks Cobble!) shows very well how the swarm chasing is also very much location dependent.
> Some places some years can be choke full of swarms.
> Other places are just not.


Location definitely matters. I am ready to say that my suburban neighborhood is a fantastic place for bees. We have tons of wild hives.

In addition, I have seen a direct correlation between the number of swarms I catch and the effort I have put into getting my name out there. This is the first year I have had my name in with pest control companies. That has resulted in many additional calls. I also have 22 traps out. And now that I’m retired on a trial basis, I am ready to run after some bees at the drop of a hat.

Also, traps matter. I am watching several traps near mine that belong to other beekeepers. None of these has caught a swarm while mine have caught multiple. The other guys are using regular 5-frame nucs. I have the double deep style as seen in various photos. I don’t know what they have inside. I have a frame of black comb and 4 foundationless frames. I also dab a little propolis tincture and I put 3 drops of LGO on cotton in a ziplock, although I am going to start trying without any LGO inside the box. I use a mixture of melted beeswax and LGO, which I package in a chapstick tube and smear a little on the outside of the traps.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 7 - I got a call from the city about an established hive in an in-ground water meter box. I took five salad plate size combs out and rubber banded of them into frames. I got probably 75% of the bees into my box, which I was able to set just inches from the original entrance. The bees were fanning and very slowly marching in when I left. It was less than 60 degrees, so I figured they just needed their time. Unfortunately, when I went back at dusk, there was still a clump of bees in the meter box. I’m assuming that’s the queen. It would be easy to vacuum them, but I don’t have an outlet in range.

I also checked on the 2 traps that I collected and replaced May 30. Both of these were tiny swarms. Now, both of these traps are occupied again and with good size swarms this time judging from the traffic.

I realize that my biggest constraint is space and equipment to move trapped colonies into. Most of my traps are basically idle, because they already have a swarm in them.

And I collected one trap that had been occupied 3 weeks. I nearly dumped it on my head when I was taking it off the tree, because the top hanging screw had broken. Then I let the box fall over when I was loading the car. Unsurprisingly, the bees were not happy when I got home and opened the door.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

Photos from the water meter box


















And the swarm traps.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

6/8 - Update on the valve box hive. I went back this evening with a plan involving lining the inside of the valve box with a garbage bag and trying to dislodge as many bees from the roof of the box as possible, then dump into the hive box. Luckily none of that was necessary. At some point in the last 24 hours, every last bee decided to give up the valve box and occupy the hive box. All I had to do was close the door. I assume I have the queen now. If so, this will be my first true cutout that was completely successful. The other 2 did not end with a queen and I never was able to get lots of the other bees that hid in cracks.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 9 - I brought home a trap yesterday and opened it today. It was pretty close to fully drawn out with 2 frames at only about 75 percent. I noticed that this trap was occupied 3 weeks ago, so new bees are just starting to hatch out. It’s nice to get a have in 5-frame nuc condition. That’s one great advantage of having to leave the traps in the bush for a while.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 12 - Those who have read this far will be familiar with my daughter’s friend’s family where I have already caught 2 swarms this year. They have had a great time watching the scouts and hoping to see the swarm arrive. Apparently they have enjoyed it enough that they have been telling their friends. One of their friends asked if she could have a box too. I already had a box in a park maybe 200 yards away, but I decided to humor them. I installed the trap about a week ago. The next day they let me know that there were 20 - 30 scouts already checking the place out. It seemed that a swarm was on its way. Then we had several days of poor weather. Today we got a break from the rain and the friend texted me videos of the swarm arriving at the box. 

Swarm trap hosting is a great way for people to enjoy the bees without assuming any responsibility for them. It’s also good for me, because I don’t have to check the traps. They just let me know when I have bees. 

By the way, my new friend calls her swarm trap her air bee n bee.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

Very much enjoying your stories and pics, very clear and informative. Thanks for taking the time. 

From something you said, I think you are using a trap the size of a ten-frame deep, in a 5-over-5 configuration. Is this correct?


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

AR1 said:


> Very much enjoying your stories and pics, very clear and informative. Thanks for taking the time.
> 
> From something you said, I think you are using a trap the size of a ten-frame deep, in a 5-over-5 configuration. Is this correct?


It’s nice to know that someone is listening. I’d write the stories just for the sake of journaling, but I also hoped that it would help someone else, or at least get someone excited about bees. 

Yes, my traps are basically 5 over 5 although the depth may not be exact. In fact some of them are slightly shorter because the wood scraps I had were shorter. I may try an even bigger box with a bigger opening. I’m catching a lot of small swarms and no real monster swarms like a few I have grabbed as a cluster. 

I did set up 3 different 10 frame deep boxes as swarm traps - same bait as the other traps. Not one of those has caught a swarm yet. One of these was within 10 yards of my standard swarm trap. It had plenty of scout traffic, but the bees ultimately chose my standard 5 over 5 box.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 14 - I checked one of the traps that I most recently collected and replaced. 12 days had passed, most of those rainy, but it already had a swarm move in. Judging from the traffic, it’s a very good size one. It’s so cool to walk up to a trap from behind the tree and know that there are bees even before you see the trap.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

So what is your success rate hits/traps so far, Cobbler?


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

GregV said:


> So what is your success rate hits/traps so far, Cobbler?


I’ll have to do a thorough accounting and report back when the season winds down. For now, I think I’m up to 45 swarms. I’m guessing that nearly thirty of those are in traps with the remainder from swarm calls. I have 22 traps, so there have been many double catches in the same spot. I think only 3 spots have not caught anything yet.

By the way, I had 22 last year. My record in the 9 years previous was 3. I started the year thinking I’d be lucky to match last year’s 22. It has been a fantastic season.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 15 - I collected and replaced 2 traps this evening. One was the busy one from yesterday, because I’m anxious to see what’s in there.

I popped the lid on the other one, because it was so quiet. I knew it was a small swarm, because I had looked inside when I first noticed that it was occupied 3 weeks ago. At that time it looked like 2 healthy seams of bees from the top. Now, it’s maybe as big as my fist on 3 frames with a little capped brood. There are other pieces of new comb that seem to be abandoned (it was almost dark.) It seems that this swarm has shrunk substantially since it arrived. I’ll give it a good inspection tomorrow, but my guess is that it is doomed.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 16 - I just collected the heaviest swarm trap I have ever felt - by far. Looking forward to seeing what’s in there tomorrow. It feels like 5 solid frames of honey., and I wouldn’t be surprised to find comb drawn below the frames. I discovered this one 6/1, but the previous check was 5/13. It seems the arrival date might have been closer to mid May, rather than early June. Oops.

And a couple of updates.

It turns out that I still have not fully successfully performed a cut out. The hive in the valve box turned out not to have a queen. That is, I didn’t get her. There were no eggs or open brood when I inspected the hive yesterday, but there was and emergency cell. I combined the two frames from the cut out with a small two frame hive, But I forgot to cut out the emergency cell. When I checked again today, the emergency cell had been emptied and torn down.

The small swarm trap that I collected yesterday was indeed very small. Maybe 100 bees. There were quite a lot of eggs and some capped brood, but there was almost no open brood. The frames were also very dry. There was a lot of be bread, but no nectar.

I did see the queen, and she looked OK. I blew lightly on a cluster of bees to see what was in the cells below them. When I did this, the queen hurried up over the top of the frame and onto the backside. when I searched for her a few seconds later, she was gone. I searched all over the hive two more times, but could not find her. I guessed she had flown away, because it can’t be all that hard to find a queen among 100 bees. After a thorough search I shook The remaining bees in front of another hive. Later in the day I noticed a cluster of bees below my hive rack. I had a good guess what that meant. Sure enough, my missing queen was in there. I scooped her up and put her in a meeting nuc, which I set next to the cluster of bees, hoping that they would all move in. That all worked out as planned, but I still probably have less than 100 bees in that hive. I’m not sure this queen is worth trying to save, but I guess I’ll give it a little time and see what happens.

















The larger hive that I collected last night had two frames drawn out to about 75% these and the bait frame were laid up full of eggs. No larvae. The population is good, but not all that huge, so I think that the heavy traffic I saw was due largely to the increased activity which is normal in the day or two after a swarm arrives.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 16 - I just collected the heaviest swarm trap I have ever felt - by far. Looking forward to seeing what’s in there tomorrow. It feels like 5 solid frames of honey., and I wouldn’t be surprised to find comb drawn below the frames. I discovered this one 6/1, but the previous check was 5/13. It seems the arrival date might have been closer to mid May, rather than early June. Oops.

And a couple of updates.

It turns out that I still have not fully successfully performed a cut out. The hive in the valve box turned out not to have a queen. That is, I didn’t get her. There were no eggs or open brewed when I inspected the hive yesterday, but there was and emergency cell. I combined the two frames from the cut out with a small two frame hive, But I forgot to cut out the emergency cell. When I checked again today, the emergency cell had been emptied and torn down.

The small swarm trap that I collected yesterday was indeed very small. Maybe 100 bees. There were quite a lot of eggs and some capped brood, but there were almost no open brewed. The frames were also very dry. There was a lot of be bread, but no nectar.

I did see the queen, and she looked OK. I blew lightly on a cluster of beers to see what was in the cells below them. When I did this, the queen hurried up over the top of the frame and onto the backside. when I searched for her a few seconds later, she was gone. I searched all over the hive two more times, but could not find her. I guessed she had flown away, because it can’t be all that hard to find a queen among 100 bees. After a thorough search I shook The remaining beers in front of another hive. Later in the day I noticed a cluster of beers below my hive rack. I had a good guess what that meant. Sure enough, my missing queen was in there. I scooped her up and put her in a meeting nuke, which I sat next to the cluster of bees, hoping that they would all move in. That all worked out as planned, but I still probably have less than 100 bees in that hive. I’m not sure this queen is worth trying to save, but I guess I’ll give it a little time and see what happens.
View attachment 64066


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Cobbler, I have been reviewing your pictures (thanks for those).
What stands out to me - how similar all the bees that you caught look like on the pictures.

Not much variety that I can pull out.
Most all bees look like pretty similar Italian derivatives (that what I call around my area - almond bees).
Once you catch so many swarms, you start seeing differences.

This (and the volume of the swarms this particular year) tells me - some large commercial operator may have moved into your vicinity. Bad or good, but that's what may have happened this year.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Cobbler said:


> *I am guessing that all three of these swarms originated from the same wild bee tree.* This is another one of those hives producing tons of bees to be able to produce *multiple swarms this big.*


Nope.
What natural tree cavity can produce large number of large swarms in quick succession?
None.
Does not work that way as the trees just can not sustain such huge numbers of bees - the cavities are small.
Feral bee colonies by definition can not be huge - for sure they are predominantly smallish.

Like I suggested already - look around for a commercial bee yard.

OR (even more interesting) - there is a possibility of a hidden bee thief operation in your vicinity.
There is this guy from CA (soarwitheagles) who had an extraordinary swarm catching season 2-3 years ago (find and read his story in BS).

I still strongly suspect he took advantage of some bee thief operation going on in his vicinity - only that single season. This did not repeat.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

GregV said:


> Cobbler, I have been reviewing your pictures (thanks for those).
> What stands out to me - how similar all the bees that you caught look like on the pictures.
> 
> Not much variety that I can pull out.
> ...


I have noticed the same thing. I have not had a single yellow bee. The biggest difference I have noticed is in the queens. I have caught an unusual number of quite dark queens. Not the typical caramel colored Queens. Still the workers all look very similar.

i’m not sure about the commercial beekeeper idea. I am in a high density suburban area. The closest open space that could accommodate a commercial operation is Close to 10 miles away. of course, nearly anything as possible and beekeeping, and ultimately, I just don’t know where the bees are coming from.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Cobbler said:


> I am in a high density suburban area. .......I just don’t know where the bees are coming from.


I see.
Another possibility - many new beeks bought many new packages this particular year.
I have a similar suburban setup - last year it felt as if many more package swarms escaped.
So a local bee seller pushing lots of packages is akin to a large operator.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

GregV said:


> Nope.
> What natural tree cavity can produce large number of large swarms in quick succession?
> None.
> Does not work that way as the trees just can not sustain such huge numbers of bees - the cavities are small.
> ...


I’ll look for that story. It sounds interesting.

The interesting thing about these multiple swarms is that it was in what counts as downtown Beaverton. This is still a suburban town, but we are talking all kinds of restaurants and retail around. There are also older homes with large, mature trees, but not at all the kind of place you’d expect to see bees on any scale. The whole neighborhood came out to watch the collection process, and they didn’t know of any other beekeepers in the area, except the one beekeeper who arrived late. She seemed well connected in the beekeeping community, but was unaware of any other beekeepers nearby. Maybe the cavity is not natural -maybe an old shed or other man-made space.

I would not have thought that a hive could produce multiple large swarms either, but there is that abandoned hive - two deep boxes - that produced at least six pretty good size swarms, which I wrote about above.

it is perplexing to see these 3 swarms within about 100 yards of each other.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Cobbler said:


> it is perplexing to see these 3 swarms within about 100 yards of each other.


It does not really tell about their source.
What it does tell - the area maybe attractive to the passing swarms in some way.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Cobbler said:


> I’ll look for that story. It sounds interesting.


Here is one post of his referring to the very successful 2018 season - the very last post in the entire talk:








Trapping 2018 - success rate?


Way to go! My only swarm this year was my own bees also. Nothing wrong with that.




www.beesource.com





He posted lots of notes in 2018 and it was across few threads and we had fun talking it out back than.
It was a single year extraordinary swarm trapping incident (not before and not after - 2018).


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

GregV said:


> Here is one post of his referring to the very successful 2018 season - the very last post in the entire talk:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That’s crazy that he was filling multiple boxes the day after setting them.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 20 - I brought home another box last night - another good, heavy colony. I guess the bees didn’t appreciate the move from the shady pond side location to my sunny bee yard, because this is what I found today.









The positive perspective on this is that there are more bees outside the box than were contained in several entire swarms I have caught.

I cracked the lid on this one to help with ventilation. In the time it took to eat lunch the bees were all back inside the box, and I transferred them into a standard nuc box with a bigger opening.

I had been feeling like I hardly had any traps to check on. 60% had been full, but I had no place to put them in my yard. In the past week I have collected a bunch of these traps, so now I have 80% of my traps open for business again. That’s great, but I feel like the season is starting to wind down. I checked quite a few on Saturday, but had only one new catch. That one is my first triple for one location this year.

My official count for the year is 45. That’s far more than I hoped for. I kind of hope there are 5 more left - for no reason other than it would be cool to get a nice, round 50. I’m pretty sure I’ll never be able to devote enough time to doing that again.

Also there do seem to be more good size swarms than tiny swarms lately. I say a good size swarm is one that can draw and fill five frames in the first brood cycle. A great swarm can draw and fill 10 frames in the first brood cycle. I have also caught several micro swarms - around the size of a softball or even smaller. These would probably need 5 brood cycles or more to fill 5 frames. I have also had a few small swarms - big enough to fill about 2 frames. I figure most of these have low probability of building up enough to survive the winter, so I have often combined them to build viable colonies. Yesterday I was able to give one of these single frame colonies to a friend who suddenly went queenless. It’s great to have resources on hand when a need arises.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Good deal!
This is crazy swarming around your place.
Something is extraordinary is going on may not repeat again.
I had a good year in 2020.
2021? 
Well - not so much OR the season is having a very slow start with about 4-5 weeks to go still.

I don't know your treatment philosophy, but the broodless swarms are great to be cleaned up with OA before they raise and cap new brood. This is something I am trying this season to improve my survival numbers.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

GregV said:


> Good deal!
> This is crazy swarming around your place.
> Something is extraordinary is going on may not repeat again.
> I had a good year in 2020.
> ...


I still don’t know how this swarm activity compares to normal. In many previous years I put out a Craigslist ad and got a swarm or two, then took the ad down. I was keeping a hive and a half back then. Last year I built a bunch of hives and started trapping with 15 traps. I left my ad up all spring/summer. I got 22 swarms. I was convinced that all those people working from home resulted in more swarm calls.

This year, I have 22 traps and I put my number in with several pest control places. I’d estimate that just one of those has produced about 10 calls. Trapping has been better, but that may have to do with improved skill and better bait. This year, every trap had a nice frame of old comb. Last year, only 10 had good bait. I never caught anything in a trap without good comb.

All in all, I just can’t say whether similar efforts would produce similar results next year, or is this an abnormal year for swarms. I am pretty sure that I will never be able to devote this much time to chasing swarms again.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 22 - I collected 2 more traps last night. Both were heavy. One of them turned out to be the heaviest trap I have ever collected. I’d say the box weighed 50 pounds. When I opened it today, I found out why. The entire box was full of comb, even the empty space below the frames. Was drawn out.








The space at the top left of the photo was drawn out, but that section was perpendicular to the frames.

This was a very large swarm, because the box has only been set on May 30. So this is a colony big enough to fill 10 frames in the first brood cycle.

While inspecting the other colony, I saw bees hatching out of their cocoons, so the trap had been occupied for at least 21 days. That means the swarm must have arrived the day after I set it - assuming it takes a day or two to draw some comb and for the queen to start laying. The colony I swapped the trap for was only a couple hundred bees, so I feel lucky to have made that trade.

I also have to mention what a joy it has been to wander into the woods to retrieve traps at dusk. It has been beautiful. I have also enjoyed watching these places through the seasons. I put the traps out when everything was dead. Now I’m pushing through waist high grass and blackberries. I see deer and sunsets. Yesterday I was up in a tree swapping out a trap when I looked over to the tree next door and found that I was being watched. Zoom in on the y in the tree.










I even enjoy lugging a box of bees and a ladder back out of the woods, laughing to myself about what people must be thinking of seeing a guy creeping out of the suburban forrest with that kind of gear.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 25 - I checked a few of the boxes that I had checked just a few days ago. This time most did not have any action. If the bees I saw previously were orphans, then they have given up. If they were scouts, maybe it’s too hot for scouting or swarming.

I also found another trap occupied. It’s nice when they let you know clearly that they have arrived, not just casing the joint.









This trap was set just 6 days earlier.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

June 26 - I collected 2 traps last night. We are having record heat in the Portland, Oregon area, so it took some work to convince the bees to head inside. I have found that misting the bees helps with this. However I have misplaced my spray bottle. So, I happen to know that spitting/blowing water at the bees also works, and does not result in bees flying back in your face.

Both of these traps were third hits in their spots. One was a nice 5-frame swarm and the other was closer to 2 or 3 frames but spread across 4 - only partially drawn. The bait frame was full of nectar.

I was actually really happy to get a small swarm, because one of my swarms from a couple of weeks ago had a poor queen. Her egg patterns looked good, but the brood that developed was maybe 40% blanks. It’s weird, because there are tons of bees in that nuc. In the past few days every empty cell has been filled with nectar, so the hive is honey bound. I removed this queen and combined the bees with the new smaller swarm. The queen there is laying nice, solid brood patterns.

Does anyone think the spotty queen deserves a second chance? I put her in a 2-frame mating nuc with 1 frame of bees just so I could at least sleep on it before turnher into queen juice.

I also got a text from the mother of my daughter’s friend. They have caught #3.










If you try hard, you can see that my trap is sitting behind the railing boards in the treehouse. The entrance is positioned right behind the gap with the bearding. The next gap to the right seems to show that there are also a lot of bees on the side of the box.

I am not sure yet whether this photo is soon after the arrival of the swarm or if the swarm is more established, but bearding to beat the heat. She said there were only a few bees flying around yesterday evening.

I have brought home 45 swarms this season and I have 3 filled traps. I’m feeling pretty confident about passing 50.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Sheesh!
Maybe I could come over with my traps for a week's vacation and take some swarms home!
My 2021 season turns mediocre.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

July 1 - Here’s one I’ve never seen before. I got a call to come grab a swarm off the side of a 2-story building. When I got there I found the cluster several feet away from a vent with plenty of bee traffic in and out. My first thought was that there was an active hive in the vent, and that hive had cast the swarm.

I was able to get into the attic and found that the vent was just an attic vent - providing access to the entire attic space. Right below the vent was a stack of combs lying on the floor like a stack of pancakes - kind of the bee version of that apartment building in Florida.

So, here’s my theory. Last weekend we had a record breaking heat wave in the Portland area. We hit 115. I think the previous high Ever reached was like 105. It was a scorcher. I think the sun was beating down on that flat top roof and the comb simply melted off.

The cluster of bees was not so much a Swarm as a congregation of evacuated bees. I forgot to take a photo until after I had already collected the cluster. Here’s a photo of the attic space. You’re going to have to zoom in to see the comb below the vent.










and here I am after scooping the cluster into a bucket. Fortunately, the cluster was right at the top of the wall, so I could work it comfortably while kneeling on the roof.











So I am counting this as Swarm number 51, although I’m not sure it is a Swarm. I don’t know whether I have a queen. I have the bees a frame with eggs and open brood. In a few days I’ll check back to see whether I have eggs or and emergency cell.

I didn’t think that the hot weather had been much of a problem for the bees. They seemed to be acting pretty normal at my hives. After inspecting some of my hives in the past couple of days, I see very little open brood, and some that is dried out. I think the heat might have killed off a lot of young brood. I wonder whether the capped brood is also dead.

I also collected a trap and while transferring the frames to a nuc box, I noticed that one comb had completely broken off from the top bar. I am pretty sure this collapse was caused by heat. Fortunately, the comb is suspended by the fishing strings I use in my foundation less frames. There’s just a half inch gap between the top bar and the top of the comb.

it really feels like this warm season is mostly over. I checked a bunch of hives that I haven’t checked in about two weeks. None of them were occupied.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

July 3 - No adventures today, in fact I inspected a trap I thought was occupied and found that it was not. So that brings my count back to 50 confirmed swarms this season.

Anyway, I’m writing after inspecting several more of my hives. What I am seeing is that the heat wave had a much bigger impact than I expected. I think we can say that nearly all of the open brood in all of my hives was cooked. It appears that the capped brood may be okay. I saw bees hatching out of their cocoons.

The heat wave may have had an impact on swarms too. A swarm is an event that is set in motion many days before it actually happens, but a total loss of open brood may be the kind of thing that could halt a swarm. It makes sense that I have had no new catches or swarm calls since the heat wave 1 week ago. Maybe I’ll see some more swarms before the season is over, but maybe the heat wave was the reason for the sudden and complete pause in swarm activity of which I am aware.

Oh, I did get a swarm call today, but it turned out to be an established bee tree. They decided to keep it. It’s a great spot 10 feet up, so the bees aren’t bothering anyone. How awesome is that to have a bee tree right in your own front yard?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Cobbler said:


> I think we can say that nearly all of the open brood in all of my hives was cooked.


How is that manifesting and is it for a fact?
People in AZ/TX don't report cooked brood, which should be a routine for them then.



> How awesome is that to have a bee tree right in your own front yard?


It is and I wish I knew of such tree in my vicinity.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

GregV said:


> How is that manifesting and is it for a fact?
> People in AZ/TX don't report cooked brood, which should be a routine for them then.
> 
> 
> It is and I wish I knew of such tree in my vicinity.


A few days after the heat wave I checked a couple of hives and noticed shriveled larvae and few eggs. 6 days after the heat wave I inspected more hives and found that none of them had mature open brood only eggs and very young larvae. There is clearly a brood break of several days there.

I agree that there are locations that hit 115 on a regular basis. Perhaps the bees can handle that when high heat is more typical, but not when it comes as a shock.

I don’t know. It is possible that I have a virus raging through all of my hives. I’m sure there are other possible explanations. But it does seem clear that all of my hives are missing about a week’s worth of the brood cycle, and are now recovering.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

July 9 - I checked about half my traps in the last two days and saw a total of 2 bees at just one trap. The swarm season is getting old, but I suspect the heat wave also put a big kink in the brood cycle for most hives, and that probably has a 
effect on swarming.

However, I am aware of at least one swarm just a few days ago. I got a call to come grab it, but they also wanted me to remove the active hive from inside their house (source of the swarm). They offered to let me have one of the colonies and I would put the other colony in a hive box for them, so they wouldn’t have to give up the bees that they had come to love. I might have agreed if it was in my neighborhood, but the 40 minute plus drive was a dealbreaker. I find that cutouts never go quite right and I end up having to go back at least once. They were quoted $700 for the job from another guy. I think he might have it just about right.

Anyway, it seems I have come to a point where I’m not going to go running to just any swarm. I’m getting the swarm fever out of my system. That’s a good thing, because I’ll never have as much free time as I did this year.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

Aug 7 - I brought home the last of my occupied traps two days ago and made the transfer to regular hive bodies today. The family that was hosting the strap had fallen in love with their bees and asked me to leave the trap in place for the last couple of months. It was not a huge swarm to begin with, and it didn’t get a whole lot of time to build up before the heat wave. I had been popping the lid open and doing a quick inspection from time to time, but it had been about three weeks since the last time. I finally got over there to do another inspection and what I found was the best example of a honey bound hive I have ever seen.









I guess it’s good news that they are finding plenty of food, but it was time to give them some more space.

this was swarm number 50 that I have collected and brought home the season. I’ll do a full statistical review of the season in the next little while. I still have 17 traps out. Even though I haven’t seen any action at any of them in more than a month, I figure there is still another fall Swarm or two to be had.

i’ll leave you with one more photo. This was the side of the box with the opening on the trap. These bees haven’t figured out that the entrance is now around the The corner, but look at all those that bright orange pollen. I also think that these bees are a different color than my other bees. These our more orange than brown.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

Sept 3 - I checked most of my traps yesterday. I was out of town for three weeks, So it had been a month since I had checked most of the traps, close to two months on several. I didn’t really expect to find any new swarms, but I guess I did have some small hope based on the fact that I did receive one swarm call while I was traveling. I didn’t see a single bee.

I also found that all of my own hives were pretty light. I had thought that we were past the heat wave and foraging was picking up, but that is not the story that an inspection of the hive tells. And, as I drive around, I notice that it is pretty hard to find any kind of . Even though the heat is gone, there just isn’t any rain, and everything is dried up. One of the wild bee trees nearby had also died.

I am beginning to wonder what all of this means not just for now but for the future. Will there be any more swarms at all this year? And will there even be many swarms next spring if the bees have had such a rough time this year, especially the wild bees?

By the way, the one swarm call I Received a couple of weeks ago came from a guy that called me earlier in the spring. He had a swarm in his yard and also had an abandoned hive box that he inherited when he moved in to the house. He had been hoping for years to get into beekeeping. He wanted me to hive the swarm for him, which I did. I bring this up, just to point out that helping people out may result in future benefit - even if you are away and can’t take advantage of that benefit. Maybe next time.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

Sept 9 - I haven’t seen a single bee at any of my traps in probably 2 months - until today. I stopped along my way to check one of my neighborhood boxes and saw several scout bees. That was enough to get me excited enough to check again a couple of hours later. By then, there were many bees checking the place out - enough that I started wondering if I might have caught a small swarm already.

This is great news, because it suggests that the nectar flow may be picking up again, although I am not seeing that in my hives.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Cobbler said:


> I left after lunch to check some other traps. I was only gone an hour. Sadly that was enough to miss the arrival. Here’s what it looked like when I got home.


I know this is months old, but looks like you got a nice picture of "You Know Who" there on this one as well.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

That’s right. I didn’t see her when I was taking the photo - I wouldn’t have even expected her to be among the last to enter the box. I only saw her later as I was looking at the photo. Once you find her, it seems silly that she’s so obvious.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Cobbler said:


> That’s right. I didn’t see her when I was taking the photo - I wouldn’t have even expected her to be among the last to enter the box. I only saw her later as I was looking at the photo. Once you find her, it seems silly that she’s so obvious.


How many swarms did you end up with? This whole thing almost reads like some dude was just shaking 'packages' of bees out near your house for like 20 weeks this summer nearly everyday. Bonkers!


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

I ended up with 50 swarms, not including a couple that I hived for other people. In the near future I will crunch the members and publish the data about swarm calls vs traps and that kind of thing.

It was a fantastic year. I was laid off in January, so I had plenty of time to chase swarms. Even so, there were several that moved on before I arrived. I did have 22 traps out and, in addition to an ad on Craigslist, this year I also had my name in with a few pest control companies. Those probably resulted in 10 calls. I also had a bunch of calls that resulted from previous experience like people knowing that I keep bees. So, each year I have more chances that people will call me when they get a swarm.

I can’t wait for next Spring.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

Okay, it’s time for the final wrap up of my 2021 swarm season.

As a reminder, I used 22 traps this year. I also set up a few hive bodies as swarm traps for a short time in early spring, before I had to pull them into regular use. My traps are all of the five frame nuc design, but double deep to provide plenty of extra space below the frames. These boxes are in the neighborhood of 40 liters in volume. Each trap is baited with one frame of old comb and 2 - 3 drops of lemongrass oil on a cotton ball mostly sealed inside a ziploc baggie. The entrance is 2 three-quarter inch holes drilled right next to each other near the bottom of the trap. Each trap also has 4 foundationless frames.

here’s how the stats came out.


I caught 50 colonies this year.
3 of these were technically cut outs, although just 1 of those was the kind of cut out you’re thinking. The other two were small, recently established swarm colonies with no capped brood yet.
One colony was an abscond colony, where the heat wave destroyed the hive in the attic of a building. I caught this colony, including the queen, swarm-style in a cluster on the outside of the building.
The remaining 46 colonies were true Swarm captures.
of these 46 true swarm captures, 31 were caught in traps and 15 from swarm calls - clusters.
My first catch was April 10, and the last was July 1. Until July 1, the action had been pretty strong, but it ended abruptly with the heat dome phenomenon that we experienced in the pacific northwest.
I caught 7 colonies small enough that a 2-frame nuc box was plenty of space.
6 colonies were big enough to appropriately fit in a five frame nuc, but not big enough to completely draw and fill that space in the first brood cycle.
32 colonies were big enough to completely draw and fill a five frame nuc in the first brood cycle
5 colonies were big enough to immediately occupy a 10 frame box and add a second as the first brood emerged.
Of the 5 largest colonies, 4 were Swarm calls. Only one was a trap capture. This was one of the last trap captures of the season and when I discovered the occupied trap only one week after placing it, all five frames were already drawn down to the bottom of the double deep five frame box.
None of the hive bodies I set up as traps were successful in attracting a swarm, although I observed many scouts.
In one case (in my bee yard), I had one of my dedicated traps and a re-purposed hive body within about 10 feet of each other. A swarm chose the dedicated trap.
3 trap locations were successful three times each.
7 trap locations were successful two times each.
4 trap locations did not catch anything at all.
of the 19 colonies I didn’t catch in traps, eight were referrals from pest control companies, with six referrals from a single company.
I also had 4 referrals from craigslist, 3 from people who know me, 2 from Nextdoor, and 2 from the city.
I hived at least two other swarms for beginner beekeepers who called me for help. I have not included these colonies in my statistics.
I left one swarm in the tree, because it was too high and was unable to respond to maybe half a dozen other calls - either because I was out of town, the swarm moved on, or the location was just too far away.
I just got my first cut-out call for next year - inside a fake rock which is part of a backyard waterfall/pond.


Here are a few things I learned or have been thinking about this year:


Much of the best part of the trapping season was wasted when I ran out of space to keep new colonies and had to leave occupied traps in the trees for several weeks.
About 1/5 of the Swarm calls I received were for very large swarms. The percentage of large swarms caught in traps was much lower.
You probably won’t catch monster swarms in a typical 40 Liter swarm trap.
Could it also be that small and medium-size swarms are less likely to be noticed and called in, so they are more likely to end up in a trap?
I did receive a report that one of my swarm traps had been occupied by what sounded like a very large swarm. There were bees clustered all over the box. However, the bees did not stay. Since the bees did choose the location, and because I can’t think of anything else that might cause them to move, such as direct sunshine, I am wondering whether the two three-quarter inch holes I use for an entrance are too small for a large colony.
Just like last year, I had one trap where the bees drew comb from the bottom of the trap, Rather than inside the box. I am starting to think that maybe it’s better not to use any lemon grass oil inside the trap, but rather to apply it only on the outside. This is to prevent the scent communication of the colony from being overwhelmed.
Of the 4 trap locations that were unsuccessful, two were literally right next to feral bee trees where I had swarm calls last year. A third was about 200 yards away from a feral bee tree - I did catch two swarms in a trap located about a quarter mile further down the same stream. Placing a trap right next to a known feral hive didn’t work out so well in these locations, but I have been successful two years in a row attracting a swarm right next to another feral hive. That location has also provided many swarm calls over the years. The fourth unsuccessful trap was on the ground in a residential yard. I never felt great about that location.
I spent a lot less effort this year getting traps high into the trees than I did last year. Ideally, I like them to be just out of reach of vandals, but I also like it when I don’t have to bring a ladder along to collect or install the trap. At most, I only want to take one or two steps up the ladder. This year’s lower locations did not seem to hurt my trapping success at all.
even with my concern about vandalism, people in my area don’t seem to pay any attention to my traps. The only sign that any of my 22 traps had even been noticed this year was that someone chalked a heart on one of my boxes. Each box does have a business card size note which says, “honeybee rescue station” along with my phone number. In two years of trapping, only one person has ever called.



I hope you have enjoyed reading my bee wrangling adventures. It certainly was fun for me to experience them. I never imagined that I would ever catch anywhere near 50 swarms in a year. This was made possible largely by the fact that I had been laid off and was out of work for the entire season. I’m not sure that I’ll have as much time to devote to chasing bees ever again. Don’t tell my wife, but I sure hope I will.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Cobbler said:


> Okay, it’s time for the final wrap up of my 2021 swarm season.


Thanks Cobbler for putting up the final report.
Very useful!
Very much readable!


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## G3farms (Jun 13, 2009)

Sounds like you were having too much fun. Reminds me of 2016, caught about 30 swarms that year, could not build boxes fast enough.
This year I only got 4 swarms I think and about 20 cut outs and trap outs.

Thanks for posting your adventures.


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## PFiji (Dec 25, 2016)

Just read this entire thread. Fantastic post!


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

PFiji said:


> Just read this entire thread. Fantastic post!


Thanks. I’m glad you enjoyed it.


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

I thought the swarm season was long since over, and it is, but I did have a noteworthy bee event today.

I was out on a long walk across the neighborhood - on an unusual route. As I approached a big, old oak tree, I was contemplating whether or not I could hide a swarm trap in it. It was not until I had walked past that a knot hole registered in my brain as possibly having some depth. I turned around and walked back. I turned on my phone flashlight and peered in right as a bee flew out.

I think this is only the second wild bee tree I have ever found without first being tipped off or guided to it. The other one was also a tree that I scouted as a potential trap site, but that was in the spring and bee traffic alerted me to the entrance. I found this one just by looking at holes in trees.


















This tree is little more than 100 yards from another bee tree - the one I have already talked about being newly reoccupied early in the spring and then not surviving to Autumn. It is also about the same distance from a trap location where I caught 3 swarms this season. So, there’s a good chance I already have this hive’s genetics in my apiary.

I also found it entertaining that the tree is just a fee yards from the playground at a a day care. I wonder if anyone else even knows.


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## rangerpeterj (Dec 27, 2015)

Cobbler said:


> I thought the swarm season was long since over, and it is, but I did have a noteworthy bee event today.
> 
> I was out on a long walk across the neighborhood - on an unusual route. As I approached a big, old oak tree, I was contemplating whether or not I could hide a swarm trap in it. It was not until I had walked past that a knot hole registered in my brain as possibly having some depth. I turned around and walked back. I turned on my phone flashlight and peered in right as a bee flew out.
> 
> ...


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## rangerpeterj (Dec 27, 2015)

Give them a shot of OAV to make it through the winter


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## Cobbler (Jan 6, 2021)

rangerpeterj said:


> Give them a shot of OAV to make it through the winter


I have actually been thinking about that. Of course, I only have the wand style heater, and it won’t fit in the hole. I could rig up a temporary entrance/gasket. On the other hand, I wonder how much to get involved with wild bees. They obviously know something about survival. I’d hate to mess that up.


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