This year is a year of swarms in Sweden. The weather is chilly and damp. Bees are sitting a lot inside having little to do but making queen cells. Maybe like many others in such a situation, thinking of reproduction.:)
In my home yard I have up till now have hade one swarming attempt, which I stopped with rain from my garden hose.
During this week I’ve had two swarms flying into my home yard from my neighbor beekeeper less than half a mile away (half a km). He has Elgon bees as well, but a smaller frame size than me, which I think contribute to increase swarming.
The first one flew to the pile of boxes with crap combs, but couldn’t get in. http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=722 I opened up after discussing with them. They behave well, even when I pass very close to them getting things in the container. The pile sits in the opening of the container and the door is always open. After a couple of weeks I will move those boxes where the bees reside to another yard.
The bees liked the box better than the pallets.
A couple of days ago another swarm flew into my garden and landed on a pile of pallets. Another bad place. With the help of may hand I scooped most of the bees into a swarm box and put it on top of the pallet pile and hope the bees would like the box better than the pallet pile.
I hived the swarm from above, easy and quick.
And they did. In the evening all of the bees were sitting still in the box. I hived the bees in two square shallow boxes. Corresponds to two 10-frame mediums. Now they are doing fine.
Church bees.
Yesterday I got a call from a church in the north part of my little town. A big swarm had landed the day before. They wanted me to remove it. It must be Abbey bees I concluded, Buckfasts. And they behaved well. A biig swarm. Probably from my friend Karlsson about 1 mile away over the fields. Elgons too.
I climbed the ladder, held the box in my left hand and scooped again most of the bees with my right hand into the box, and hanged it on the gutter, hoping that the rest of the bees would gather into the box through the excluder.
In the evening the bees were inside the box ready for transport to their new home.
The bees had in one day drawn 5 small combs with cellsizes 5.0-5.4 mm. 5.4 at the top and 5.0 at the bottom. Some nectar in the top of the biggest and two eggs. Laying queen:
In the evening all bees were inside the box with a few sitting outside on it. I transported them to on of my yards and hived them.
Three nice colonies in less than a week!
