Tag Archives: Beekeeping

We had a very exciting Wednesday! One of our beehives produced a swarm. What’s a swarm?

“Swarming is the natural means of reproduction of honey bee colonies. A new honey bee colony is formed when the queen bee leaves the colony with a large group of worker bees, a process called swarming. In the prime swarm, about 60% of the worker bees leave the original hive location with the old queen. This swarm can contain thousands to tens of thousands of bees. Swarming is mainly a spring phenomenon, usually within a two- or three-week period depending on the locale, but occasional swarms can happen throughout the producing season.”

Last year, one of our hives swarmed four times, but we were sadly unprepared with an empty hive to capture the swarm. It was bittersweet watching my precious bees go out into the world, but- with bee population online decline worldwide- I took solace in the fact that they would find a home somewhere nearby.

This year, though, we were smarter. Two new empty hives were painted and at the ready. When we saw the bees starting to swarm on Wednesday, we sprang into action.The bees left the hive and alighted in a not-so-convenient spot in a nearby tree. Not-so-convenient because the brink they chose was high enough to require a ladder to reach.

After carefully positioning a large cardboard box below, Zac climbed he ladder with a pair of pruners and clipped off the swarm branch.

You’re probably wondering why Zac isn’t wearing a bee suit for this operation. We actually only wear our suits on rare occasion when we are harvesting honey. Our bees are pretty mild and most bees only become aggressive when defending their hive and their honey. Since swarms are with fixed abode, they are very easy to work with. This doesn’t mean that the uninitiated should go around poking them, of course.

The branch more or less fell into the box below.

Once the bees had settled a bit, Zac used a bee brush to get them off the flaps of the box.

And smoked them to calm them down a bit.

Then he made a space in the new hive by removing some of the frames.

All that was left to do was to pour the bees from the cardboard box into the beehive and cross our fingers that the swarm would stay put. As long as the queen is in the box, the rest of the swarm will stay. Lucky for us, the queen was in residence. A hive check yesterday showed that the bees were already drawing comb, which means they are setting up housekeeping.

Now we have three beehives! Well reap the rewards when it comes time to harvest honey. We’ve got another empty hive standing by in case of a second swarm, so keep your fingers crossed.