Bees, bees, bees
My daughter, son-in-law and new granddaughter were visiting us on Mother’s Day. It was about noon, we were eating lunch…my wife spots this horde of bees. “It’s a swarm!” We all rush out to see it. I think it probably came from the Warre hive that’s been threatening to swarm for over two weeks. Son-in-law says, “What can I do to help you capture it?” My wife says, “Oh, thank you, Jim, I didn’t want to have to do it.”
We let the bees coalesce on a branch.
They settled down into a nicely shaped swarm about 12 feet (4 m) up.
This calls for the Steinkrauss-Morse swarm retriever
A Bucket of Bees
“The queen is over here…” Bee stick their abdomen up in the air to fan the pheromone letting stragglers know where the queen is.
It was a win, win, win. My son-in-law, Jim Montgomery provided much needed assistance in corralling the swarm, my daughter was able to capture the whole event with the camera, and my wife was able to spend more time with our granddaughter.
Where did the bucket of bees go? Well, I would have liked to put it into Bee-atrice log hive because it’s a ‘prime’ swarm, but Bee-atrice was already occupied. I found someone who didn’t want package bees. He has built a Perone style hive. It’s a BIG hive. I like his attitude…”The Perone hive is built for the bees, not the bee keeper. It’ll hold about 150,000 bees. I’ll let them build their own comb.” We arrange for the ‘hand-over,’ and meet at a very scenic state park along the Oregon Coast.
Vernon built his own Perone hive. He brought the framework holding 17 top bars where the bees will build their natural comb. He held it up so we could see how big the hive will be. In the background you can see why I wanted to live on The Oregon Coast.
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
Amazing to see you collecting them 🙂
I really like your swarm catching kit – is it home-made?
Terry Kelly, a beekeeper in the San Francisco area sent me a bunch of articles on beekeeping. This swarm catcher article was one of them. I tried to find the article again (so I could credit it), but I must have put it in a ‘special’ place. Basically all it is is longish bag made of sail cloth, sewed into a “U-shape” so the bees won’t get caught in the corners, and attached with velcro to a plastic potted plant container. I picked one out from my wife’s collection (with permission, of course) You have to cut the bottom of the pot off, attach the velcro, and use a sheet metal collar on the outside to attach the plastic pipe clamps for the bamboo stick. You’ll notice in the video that starts coming apart, but wasn’t hard to fix. I’ve got different lengths of bamboo so I can go up 15 ft (5 meters) without using a ladder. (I’m pretty shaky on a ladder)
My daughter (shooting the video) really caught the action of the first slug of bees falling into the bag.
Terry Kelly is also responsible for sending me the drawing of a face carved on the front of the hive, which led to the carving on the log hive.
Very clever stuff!
I guess I have to admit that responsibility. It sure turned into to a great video!