# Swarms to big for Deep hive bodies?



## jrbbees (Apr 4, 2010)

Now you understand why they sometimes move into a nuc and then leave a few days later. A swarm is 'build' crazy. I have seen a full 10 frame deep drawn in just a few days by a big swarm. Before they swarm they eat all the honey they can hold. This helps them produce more wax and is a buffer for the days without food.
This is the reason you want to split rather than have your bees swarm. You lose bees and the honey they take.

Consider this. When you want to expand. Take the new hive bodies and move the old hive's frames into the new hive body. The old hive body has that 'home' smell. Use those as your swarm traps until you need them for something else.

Is it a pain to move all those frames? Yes! But the used bodies make very inviting traps. Whats a nice big swarm worth to you?


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

I made plenty splits this season. That was the first to get away on me. It actually was a sunkist nuc I put in two deeps in the spot of very large colony i split to catch returning foragers. I underestimated the returning foragers and my new sunkist went bye, bye, lol. I just figured it out this morning when I inspected the yard. My friend just got a real bargain, lol.


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## c10250 (Feb 3, 2009)

I believe this one needed two hive bodies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p_pwIPrGL4


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## LtlWilli (Mar 11, 2008)

It looks more like three would be more like it. Man! That's a great vid of a truly humongous swarm. The most I ever caught filled a brood and a medium full up.I had to add another medium very soon after.


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## c10250 (Feb 3, 2009)

You know the funny thing is that you see all those bees, and think "Man! that's a whole hive worth of bees!". The swarm accepted their new home, and after a couple of days looked like a weaker hive in terms of bees coming and going. It makes you wonder how many bees are in one of your stronger hives.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Here is the swarm i speak of which I already posted week back or so. I should have brought the cam up the ladder cause it was hanging on to about two feet of the branch. On this video you only see the end of it.

http://youtu.be/Y4d1L44FJaQ


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## c10250 (Feb 3, 2009)

Holy cow that was a long drop! Nice video.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

It was late in the evening or i would have tried to think of a better way. They were realy checking out a couple swarm traps I had in the area but there is a lot of old oak with holes in them so i figured they might chose a tree instead. I dont think they would have chosen one of my traps anyway cause they were to big. If anyone is wondering how I lined the swarm up so they would drop into the box, I hung a string right off the swarm and positioned the boxes so the string was dead center in the middle of the box. There still were enough bees that missed the box to make up two nice swarms.


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