I received a message from a friend today about a swarm that had taken up a temporary home in a tree in her back yard. I loaded up the extension ladder, and high-tailed it to her home before it got too late in the evening, and evaluated what we had going on… It looked to be about 2-3 pounds of bees firmly holding on to a thick branch.. about 18-20 feet in the air.
I tried shaking the branch – but it was too thick to get a good movement of the bees, then I tied a rope to the branch – to shake from the ground. Again – No luck. Back up into the tree I went (with a ladder this time), and decided it was time to scoop the bees by hand. This seemed to work. I got about 75% of the bees into the box. It’s unknown, though as to whether I got the queen into the box – they were clustered pretty tightly.
It was dusk, so I decided to leave the box until I can make it back to check on them. It may be a few days – so hopefully, they decide that my nuc-box is a great place to live. I’ll find out then whether or not the queen has decided to take up residence in the box.
On a similar note. I have received 4 honeybee-related calls in the first 4 days of this week. My hopes are that feral survivor honeybees are on the increase.
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