Today I experienced the natural phenomenon of swarming first-hand. I noticed some unusual activity going on in front of the Rocky hive this afternoon and when I went outside, I heard an enormous BUZZ. Thousands of bees were flying around in a frenzy in the warm sunshine, heading up to the branch of a nearby pine tree. They held in a tight cocoon on the branch, and I hoped that they would make their way to the empty hive I'd set out a few days ago.
About four hours later, the swarm had vanished, heading on to whatever permanent location they'd selected. Unfortunately, it wasn't the "bait" hive in my yard!
Here's a little movie of this afternoon's action:
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Preparation is the key
It's a beautiful, warm, sunny day — just perfect for painting my new hive and doing an inspection of Apollo and Rocky.
Both hives overwintered nicely and appear to be strong. I did not go into the bottom supers, but did pull some frames from the middle supers to see that the queen was busy laying eggs and the bees had plenty of honey stored around the edges for food.
I have put queen excluders on both hives and honey supers on top of those. (The excluder keeps the queen from making her way up and laying eggs in the honey super.) The workers have made their way up into the honey supers and are building out comb, so I hope this signals lots of sweet honey to come this summer!
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