The swarm moving in from start to finish, 20 minutes of video in 20 seconds.
I looked at the bait hive this afternoon and there were a lot of bees behaving a bit odd there. The bait hive has been quiet for most of the week since I checked some of the hives a week ago. I put a camera up and when I was checking it later there was a swarm moving in! They say a swarm in July is not worth a fly, we'll see. Looking at the hive now you'd think it was just a few scout bees unless you paid attention.
Swarm update. They flew off around 12:00 yesterday when I wasn't looking at the camera I had pointed at them. Activity at the bait hive was typical for what it has been for a week or more.
Log entry today for the bait hive:
"12:39 Four bees in bait hive. Much less activity, no warring activity, it's as if one camp of scouts got back home last night and exclaimed "Where the fuck did everyone go?!""
The bait hive was really active today with scouts...
The two hives that love propolis and have blocked any form of upper venting are quite numerous on the outside of their hives. There's a box of bees on the Center hive and not much less than that on what was the Green nuc which was started as a split 9 weeks ago with laying queen 7 weeks ago and got a honey super last week.
#beekeeping #BaitHive #BeeBearding #bees #apiary #SwarmTrap #June29 #SwarmInJune #SilverSpoon
I put the gopro on the bait hive this afternoon for a few hours and sped through the footage and saw some scout bees. Almost exactly 24 hours after I put it in this spot.
There has been a lot of bee activity at the bait hive this morning. When I first looked for the swarm up in the tree I thought it was gone but then I spotted it later but it seemed like maybe it was smaller. The branch wasn't bent down as much. Seems sorta like the bee swarm didn't have a plan or maybe they had found a migratory hive that was empty and it moved overnight. They're 50 feet, 15 meters, up in a tree so not much I can do about that.
I added some plates to attach the bottom board for moving the nuc hives around and to stack them 2 deep for normal or use as a bait hive. I also added a traditional 'looks like a tree hole' feature to the entrance, put a piece of corrugated plastic sheet under the cover so they can't glue it down, and used some canopy bungee cords to hold down the cover. It's baited up and 5 heavy waxed frames in the top box.
#beekeeping #NucHive #SwarmTrap #BaitHive #BeeSwarm #apiary #diy #bees
I took the new hive and I divided it vertically to make two 5-frame bait hives. I had a deep sized divider so I just made another one with the ability for the upper one to slot into it. It should work and I can put frames in the lower box too if I want to keep it divided this way for longer.
Now we wait for warmer, drier, less windy weather.
#beekeeping #bees #SwarmTrap #BaitHive #BeeSwarm #apiary #April8
The bait hive, or swarm trap, is set. Lemongrass oil put on the cotton ball in a little plastic bag and it hangs between the first two frames. I rub propolis on all the top bar sides, and I rub saved comb wax from hive inspections that hasn't been rendered on all the foundations. I don't have extra brood comb to use.
This sits at about eye level behind my hives under a little pine tree.
#beekeeping #bees #SwarmTrap #BaitHive #BeeSwarm #April8 #apiary
Tom