One of the colonies swarmed a few days ago and we were able to catch them and put them in a box. This swarm is about three feet long and a foot wide. Maybe 4 pounds of bees. The queen is at the center. Scouts will spend a day or two looking for a suitable home and then the entire mass will move in a group to the new location. We caught them before they moved on. They are very docile when swarming but we suited up just to be on the safe side.
Charley and Peter got up on a ladder and cut the branch just above the swarm. They were actually on a few branches and this shot is of one of the last little clumps.
Charley shakes the bees into the box we set up for them and they happily move into the frames below.
We left the box there all day to give the scouting bees a chance to return to their home. When night fell we blocked the entrance and carried them to their new location about 5 feet from where they originally departed.We opened them up two days later to see how they were doing and they had already built quite a lot of comb in the new box. we gave them a fully drawn frame with a few capped larvae and some capped honey from another hive so the queen would have a place to start laying eggs right away.
