Happy Harvest Blog
Seriously. Not again!?
Pansy swarmed AGAIN. This time I got pictures. I heard the roaring sound again and looked out. Pansy?!! What's it been, five days? Since a giant contingent of the bees just departed from Pansy, I had a hard time even believing what I was seeing, although, a swarm is pretty unmistakable. Not possible. There aren't enough bees left to split again. There were. I was completely expecting Violet to swarm. The Violet hive is huge and strong.
Swarm catching, part 2
At "dusk" (ok, dark), I got the hive box ready. One super full of drawn comb and fresh foundation, another empty super, and an eke. The whole empty upper box thing is to imitate a spacious swarm box. So they can all crowd up in the ceiling. Then I went to get the nuc box from the woods. Whoa! Quite a few bees on the outside of the box. More than before. They're so neat. They're like lined up in stacked rows. And quiet, just a low hum. It was bedtime.
MY FIRST SWARM!
It seemed to go pretty well. I was getting bees into the box. Only thing, they seemed to want to come out of the box. It was like a really slow boil over. I'd dump bees in, they'd flow back over the top of the box. I'd scoop them back in with my hands.
Instagram.
I may not make a blog post every day, but at least I Insta.
Bite size.
