Swarm 5.3.16

Visited Beckie and her hive from the split we did with her. It was so sad- no queen, very few workers. The hive is done and not sure what happened to the queen. Bummer. I returned to enjoy my new topbar hive. They are really something. Black and beautiful. The sun was just going down, but it was still almost 70 degrees. Amazing after our snowy weekend!

I turned around and the Langstroth hive girls were beautiful in the sunlight too!

  I was about to go inside to do homework and discover my Langstroth girls had left the hive and had swarmed on our evergreen tree.   It was amazing- probably 15"-17" inches around at the top, and 25" long/deep. It didn't really know what to do, but since I had taken those classes I knew exactly what to do. I scrambled and got some plywood as a base and then put my new deep box ready to catch them. I put a quart of sugarwater in along with a couple deep frames, I borrowed the inner lid from the Langstroth and put my new mesh/feeder with hardware cloth over for air.       

In the swarm class I took with Beth Conrey she told us that the bees put their abdomen's in the air and fan their wings trying to spread the pheromones of their queen. This  kinda points them headfirst towards where the queen is. This worked great and I'll bet within 10 minutes they had called almost all the bees in (folks are right about time...you don't have any idea how much time is passing...should have set my alarm timer). I used my bee brush and all but about 20 in. I called a bee friend as to what to do next. We thought it probably wouldn't be possible to return them to their old home- just swarm again. I think I'll set them up next to existing Langstroth and see if my old Lang can produce a laying queen. If they both survive and I end up with too many hives...I'll just share with Beckie!For now- all is good and they are probably ok for a few days...until it gets HOT on Friday! For now, ALLES GUT!