A week of swarms and hot weather!

I have had an amazing week of swarms and challenges with bees that I have never had before.

First of all I had a second swarm at my own apiary, A classic swarm and luckily accessible, only 3 meters from  the mother hive and a nice height off the ground.
Easy to deal with and went in to its new full size hive with no problem at all and now seem to be drawing out comb at a rapid speed.

Ereac Swarm

On wednesday morning I went down to Ereac ( about 45 mins from Corseul) to collect a bautiful swarm that had appeared in a garden the evening before. I was there at 8 am in case the swarm moved on and when I got there  was luckily still there.

 The swarm was on the branch of a  hybiscus shrub and as you can see the weight of the swarm had caused the branch to bend over and touch the ground. This was not a problem and knowing that the bees had been there all night and were quiet I simply  cut the branch off (with the kind help of the property owner) the branch and simply placed it on top of the Nuc containing 5 frames . 4 of plain wax sheets and 1 of drawn up comb that had all been sprayed with sugar solution.

They seemed to be happy with the home I offered them. They soon filtered  in to the frames and then started Fanning on top of the box and also on the front landing strip.

Then slowly I closed off the top lid, causing them to revert to fanning on the front landing strip and the majority of the remaining bees then were called back in to the hive.

 The weather was hot  so I had to be quick. You have a dilema! Should you come back that evening and collect the hive when every single bee has returned to the hive and also run the risk of the whole lot absconding during the day or do you cut your losses and chose the right moment and close off the front.
Don`t  forget that when you put the frame over on the temperatur will start to rise to you havent got long before they may find it too warm.

I think I lost about 20 bees but all was well. I drove back to the apiary and left them there for about 15 mins before opening the front door and letting them out. They were so well behaved and simply in and out for a while before settling down.

Flying swarm.

Well I said I had been an amazing week. On my way to work after collecting this swarm I flew in to another swarm that was passing over the road I was on. Luckily I was not going to fast and immediatly adjacent to me was a small lay by, So I pulled over and took up the chase!.
I went through 2 gardens and 2 fields and simpy ran with the swarm. Its an amazing experience. The swarm stopped a couple of times , paused over a couple of buildngs, obviously not choosing each place as a possible resting place, and then moved on.
We got to a small valley and they simply vanished in to the top of some large oak trees and they were gone!
What an experience I will probably never see that again.


Swarm arrives at a swarm trap


With the weather being perfect after about 2 weeks of cool and wet the potential for swarms is large.


I checked this trap as I was passing the garden on the way to see another client. On the way back this is what I found.

  A beautiful swarm had cast and landed on the front of the trap

The big question was, why was it on the front of the trap and not inside. I was perplexed. Usually some bees arriving at a trap would  gather around the front of the entrance, or even virtually cover the trap, but they would  gradually move in to the trap.

I phoned up my beekeeping teacher who at the time was also up to his eyes in bees, told me that they may well go in on their own but it may take a day but if they don`t go in to the hive by the following day then I should take off the top of the hive and try and coax them like that.. So I left them alone and took some Pics for the album. I came back that evening and  they were even more clustered above the entrance. So the following morning I decide to try move them in. It was nearly a costly exercise. The minute I took of the lid and started brushing some of the bees in to the box, the bees initiate a mass take off. What a sight. The whole swarm was in the air and circling the garden. They went over the garden wall  and then came back and very fortunately, settled on a shrub in the garden. Again I was extremely lucky. They had chosen a lilac shrub about waist height.

So what next, Well I also had my swarm trapping box with me so that was my next weapon of choice. It was obvious they did`nt want to go in the Nuc that the scout bees had drawn the queen and the rest of he swarm to.
I waited until they had all settled and then put the box underneath them and gave a large shake and the majority went in. Then closed off most of the bottom door, leaving access and slowly turned over the box and put it on the ground.

Bees appeared at the front fanning nicely. This time the queen was in the box and at the moment, happy to be there. I closed off the box and lost about 10 bees but thats nothing to loosing a beautiful swarm!
I transported  them to the apiary and used the white sheet method to give them the sense of walking in to their own hive.

So I set up a ramp leading  up the the nuc box and I have chosen a nuc box because i felt that the size of the swarm did not merit a large hive and in this sized box it would probably get away quicker!
I tipped out the bees on to the ramp and just let them decide what they wanted to do.

They all climbed up well, straight in to the box

To cap all this activity, when I was pouring all those bees on to the ramp one of my nucs started swarming. It spewed out bees for about  2 minutes and they all took to the air in a  amazing spectacle. They headed off in to the nearby scrub so I followed them from a distance. Fortunately I was had another nuc spare at my apiary which I grabbed and ran with.
They settled after about 5 minutes on to a gorse bush. It was a good size swarm for a nuc box and I just took pot luck and just shook them off the bush straight in to the nuc. They immediately started fanning and going in via the front landing strip. I put on the lid and walked them back to the apiary where they are now installed. What a week! hope this weather continues like this.

Nuc box underneath gorse bush

Swarm at the Apiary and cut out.

 First swarm of the year.


I drove past my hives yesterday to find this lovely swarm hanging from a small hornbeam shrub in front of my hives. I can only assume it has come from one of my hives but I have artificially swarmed all of them recently and only found open queen cells in one hive so I am really confused as to where this large swarm has come from and also the volume of bees it has come with. The obvious thing to do was to put it straight in to a hive and because of the volume of bees I have decided to put it straight in to a 10 framed hive. I also had some spare frames from a hive I lost in the autumn so they instantly had comb and some honey on these two drawn up frames.
All went well and I managed spray most of the fames with sugar sirop and to get the hive right underneath the swarm, gave them a really good shake and all fell on to the top of the frames. I then watched as they all started filtering in to the frames.

Lots of bees then started fanning which usually says" come on in its ok to all the other bees or you can also have some comfort that the queen is likely to have been transfered in to the hive but its never a done thing thing until you see eggs laid in to cell. All seemed to be fine as I had to go out later that after noon to do the cut out described below so I left them in peace with a hurriedly put together feeder and a full load or syrop.

So later that evening and nearly dark, I drove past with another colony of bees that I had just cut out and there they were all again hanging on the same hornbeam shrub. This is typical of swarms, typically unpredictable!! They can look all well and happy in their new come and then they abscond.

Fortunately they moved back on to the same place as before. 

So What to do next?, well back to basics but as it was dark I simply just took the hive and put it back underneath them and left it there for the night. I came back the next morning and the weather was drizzly and colder but they were mostly all still there but with a few more of them were inside the hive and using it as a half way house.  I think one can assume at this stage that he queen was there, somewhere, as on the rear on the hive worker bees had started to draw up comb overnight, it was  also on the hornbeam shrub as well. It was obvious that thats where they wanted to set up home.  So later that day I had another idea.

I got hold of a white sheet and a board and as large plastic tray. I then carefully moved the hive away from the swarm, back to the place it was the previous attempt. Set up the board as a ramp in front of the hive and the covered this with the white sheet. I then took the large plastic tray put it underneath the swarm and gave the shrub a really good shake. All the bees then fell off in to the tray with very little flying around.  I then simply lifted the tray over to the ramp and then tipped out all the bees out on to the middle of the sheet.

Immediately they started marching up towards the entrance and in to the hive, one  by one stinger to antenna, with a good few on the ramp fanning  and calling the remaining up in the the hive. 

Within 20 minutes they were all in. It`s a really natural way to hive them and I think it has given them the feeling perhaps that this time, they have chosen their location themselves. Its almost as though they needed a bit of time to decide for themselves what they wanted and where they needed to be.

The next morning all is well. They are all still in the hive and all looks good this time.

 The previous evenings cut out

This is what we found when we opened the shutter of this property, a beautiful swarm that seemed to have arrived about a week before.  Luckily they had built comb  only to the top of the wall at this stage. Another few week and the whole thing would have been a lot more difficult.

So I my plan was to try and cut out the comb,  try and place it in to some frames and then I was banking on the fact that after this the majority of the colony would then sense the queen and comb were not there and follow their senses and move down the wall  to the new position of their  home, and thats exactly what I did.

With any swarm the first job is to assess the state of the swarm and the behavior of the bees. I knew they were only recently established  and at this stage they have very little to protect. Their queen usually has not started laying until about now and there`s not much comb to deal with. The bees seemed very well behaved. and the weather had actually turned out fine for the first time for a long time. This always helps.

I put a nuc box on the window sill and tied it to the railings. this worked really well and meant I had free hands to do the cut out. So First thing was to smoke the bees a little, this will also help ascertain their mood.
I thought it would be better to smoke the right hand side first, as that way I could remove each section of comb one by one and hopefully find the queen if possible. This is rare but I put a queen holder in my pocket just in case I saw her for a few seconds.

I made up some Dadant frames with some fairly taught rubber bands around them. Each time I cut a piece of comb out I simply lowered it in a frame and slid the bands across to hold them in position. On the third piece of comb, I remarkably found the queen, grabbed my clip and she just walked in. How lucky was that? This was actually the middle piece of comb that she had just started laying in to, as there was some 50 tiny white eggs in the centre of the comb. So I had the queen. At this stage, provided she is not damaged most cutouts  are easy. If you loose a load of bees its of no real consequence as long as the queen is safe she will commence relaying within a few days  and then the numbers of bees will soon build up again but its always best to get the maximum amount of bees possible so the colony can re-establish as quickly as possible.

Loading the comb sections in to the hive (shown above)

One last section to cut out, but this had no eggs, pollen or honey . Its interesting to note that if you look behind the ladder, on the under section of the granite lintel, you can see the previous position of the existing swarm that was there 2 years before. They are known to swarm to previous positions! QED

At this stage I was not sure what was going to happen. Was there enough swarm pheromone in the queen to get all the others to follow her in to the new position. I left her in the clip but placed the clip in to the hive and hung if on one of the frames. That way the other bees knew she was present. Its during a cut out that you may be better off with a bee vac and if I had left it another few days more before I  tried to remove this colony then they may not have been so easy to remove them.  Quite remarkably they just walked down the wall, in to the nuc containing their existing comb and queen.

All comb removed and a very little smoke to move them on their way.

Bees marching down the wall!

A bit of a mess here but generally all moving towards the front of the nuc and marching in.

The last bees move in.

You can see some of the bees fanning with their bottoms in the air , producing the nasanov pheromone from a gland under their wings. The fanning of their wings sends this up in to the air, calling the others in. This is one of the most beautiful things you can see in nature. The smell is quite overwhelming!

Within another 20 minutes they were all in. I simply closed the front lid and we had our colony.
I then transported them to my apiary and let them settle for 10 minutes and then opened the lid and let out the queen in to the colony. Job done!
The next day I actually transfered them straight in to a 10 framed hive and also gave them a bit of brawn up comb to help the get their colony up and running faster, needless to say a feeder as well.

Amazingly in less than 24 hours of their arrival at chez moi, they had started building comb to the top of the frames I had placed their original comb in to. They are obviously happy and just want to get on with re building.
 I have done a video of this whole cut out but it needs some editing. As soon as I can I will post the link here.
Many thanks to Miranda Bell     http://jardinmiranda.blogspot.fr/      firstly found this swarm and secondly was the only person to get stung  while filming and taking many photos but it was an accidental sting as a bee had gone down her glove when she removed it. Thanks Miranda.
22 May
Heres some footage of the bees moving in to their new home I only have included the final few minutes at this stage but it gives you some idea of the noise and volume of bees  http://youtu.be/s8XWq6ZtlqY

Artificial swarms and some honey!

Well it's amazing how things can turn around in a couple of weeks. With the slightly better weather we have had over that last couple of weeks and all the moisture from the previous 2 weeks before that, we now have some decent nectar flow. I am only taking honey from 2 hives this spring but when I had a look at these 2 hives last friday, to my surprise both supers were nearly full.  In my excitement I have added another super to each hive and even though I am not expecting these two additional supers to be full by next week ( which is when i intend to harvest) it hope fully will give the 2 hives more space until next saturday when I intend to harvest and also artificially swarm the two hives afterwards. I have also given them some brand new supers to get to work on, which  will make them more attractive to fill up for the summer honey and hopefully will be putting these supers  back on,  around the first week of june or as soon as the oil seed rape has finished flowering.

I carried out performed 4 artificial swarms which seemed to have gone well, but i will not look inside the nuc until a clear 4 weeks have passed in order to give the new queen all the time she needs to get her act together and start laying.

I have also received a call this week from a friend who has found a swarm of bees that has now turned in to a small colony, behind a shutter of a house she looks after. So this coming thursday I will be going to cut out this swarm and place the "football sized " nest in to a nuc or hive depending on its actual size and condition I find it in. All very exciting and also a nice early swarm which should  also be ready for the sumer honey crop.
I will be filming it and also taking pictures so stay posted and all will be revealed probably over the next weekend. But before I get too excited I will see what I find when I get there.
RE My swarm Traps,
 Now I have heard of a swarm from early last week ( probably around then) I am going to start to watch my swarm traps more closely. I have seen a few bees around many of them already so thats a good sign a gives you more encouragement after all this cool weather.

The other bit of good news it that we have nesting barn owls on our house box. I managed to get a few seconds of the female last week and have posted it on u tube. she is rather cute!

Heres the link.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAAwq8GJuGs&feature=channel&list=UL



Richard

Bad weather and no honey!

I manages to get a quick look at my bees last sunday between the frequent rain showers. Not one single drop of honey in any of the 3 supers I had place on 2 weeks before.
The problem is we have had plenty of rain but the temperatures are still around or below  14 degrees making any appreciable forraging difficult. I have 3 fields of rape seed oil in full flower around my bees but the bees just cant get there and if they can, the temperature is so low the pollen in not ripe and the nectar flow is also low.  When we do have a lull in the wind and the sun comes out  there is for a few minutes a mad dash to the the nearest flowers. This results in huge clouds of bees suddenly appearing and the returning just before the next shower comes. Its actually a really interesting site to watch.

On the plus side the colonies are doing very well. They have all started  drawing up the 1st and 10th frame that I swapped in the spring . This  shows that the colonies need more space and are edging to the etremities of the hives to find it.
There is a large amount of brood in each hive . I think that my queens have been laying continously for the last 3 weeks. Its obvious therefore that there is plenty of food / pollen to supply the needs of the hive but there is not excess to start storing in the supers above.

I have decided I am going to remove my honey supers, allow my bees to become cramped and this will then enduce swarming. This time last year some of my hives had swarmed and then I artificially swarmed the others. Due to the amount of rain we have recieved its looking much more likely we will have a good nectar flow during the fowering of the chestnut trees,  So I am hoping to artificially swarm all my colonies in the next week , create some bees and then leave the bees build back in numbers before the best quality honey comes along.

Artificial swarming.

For those of you who dont know  very briefly, Artificial swarming is a technique employed by beekeepers during the spring and summer. It basically allows a beekeeper to create a new colony of bees for free and stop your bees from swarming at the wrong time..

Personally I dont usually collect spring honey and instead I let my bees build up in numbers in the spring and when they swarm or are about to swarm I go through my hives and artificially swarm them, making the bees think the queen has gone. The bees then, in their noble effort to save their colony take an egg less than 3 days old and feed it royal jelly exclusively and then produce a new queen. She then hatches out in 21 days and after she has run the gauntlett of mating flights she returns to the colony and starts laying eggs as the new queen This takes usually just over 3 weeks.
I will be doing a "how to perform an artificial swarm in my next blog." As usual you need to know all the nuts and bolts of the technique to get it right. I have done it fro the last 4 years and only started getting it right last year.
I will also be monitoring my bee traps around my colonies closely as a guide to how far advanced the preparations for swarming are, but this is really a guide and a lot depends on other factors.

Well its still howling and lashing with rain here. The promise of warmer weather for this week has changed to possibly next week and certainly nothing in the next 2 or 3 days but we must not forget this is normal weather for brittany, we have just been spoilt for the last 2 springs!

Making A Honey Super

Making a Honey Super

Well I have a bit of time on my hands( so to speak) as I had an accident with a chainsaw the week before last. Thankfully a very close shave and  no permanant damage to Nerves or tendons but at least three works off work, while the minor opp has time to heal!
This afternoon I decided it was time to try and make up a honey super. I`ve had the wood and all the parts for a while in my shed but not had the time to put them all together. I have previously been occupied with getting swarm traps ready and now thats completed and 22 out of 25 are out, I am feeling as though I am catching up a bit!

The sizes are the same in overall width and breadth but the depth of a honey super is roughly half that of a Dadant 10 frame, only 17 cms deep.

 I also fit a band or wood around the upper middle outside of the super. This is better than handles and allows easy moving and stacking . When they are full of honey they are very heavy indeed!

Ply Inner sections.

To make it a bit easier and quicker I already had one side of a hive ready made so I cut that in to two, making the two longest sides of the super and used slightly thinner ply for the two inner pieces of wood that support the honey supers. The other beauty of using ply for the inner pieces is that rather having to get the normal wooden sides rebated to take the frames, I was able to cut it to the desired depth with a hand saw and then use a chisel to just lift out the ply to the required depth.
All in all quite a good result for a couple of hours work. I will be using this super next week. I am intending to place this super in order that the bees draw up the frames so I can re use it for the sumer honey which is really the only type of honey as far as I am concerned.

It looks like the weather may be starting to warm up towards the beginning of next week. Fingers crossed. That should give the bees about 3 weeks of foraging in a good nectar flow from the oil seed rape. Up until now we have had the moisture but the daytime temperatures for the last 2 weeks have been between 11 and 15 degrees. Not nectar gathering weather!!!

honey super with wax foundation on.

Made a second super as I had the ply, but need to buy some additional super frames, but its painted up and ready to go!

Swarm Traps.- How to make them, where to place them.



Swarm Traps.

How to make them ,  when and where to place them.



Swarm Trap located in a oak tree.



Why do bees Swarm?

Bees usually swarm for a few reasons. The main reasons are as follows:

1.  Bees have a need to reproduce and they feel that conditions are right to do so. Very briefly, the queen oversees the production of queen cells. Just before several virgin queens emerge, she leaves with approximately half the colony and sets up a new home somewhere else, usually in a radius of between 200 meters and 3 kilometers from the mother colony.
2. Bees in their own colony are overcrowded, classically due to spring honey, a large hatching of brood and an increase in foraging bees. This in turn will trigger their queen in to producing queen cells before she departs with about half the colony.
3. Bees are currently not in a viable hive. It might be diseased or in a position that has not been chosen well or has been damaged due to an external force making the current hives position non viable.

Generally a colony of beens will swarm due to one or two of the above reasons and its as simple as that! 

Colonys in a small cavity generally will swarm more often than one in a large cavity.  Queens in their first year are also less likely to swarm. In their second year, twice as likely to swarm and so on! The average life for most queens being 3 to 5 years old.

How do you catch a swarm.

Catching a swarm can be a tricky business.  If your bees swarm from you aipiary then you may be luckily enough to find your bees temporarily resting on a branch or wall, gate post and hopefully at a convienient height. The majority of bees don`t behave like this and will go in you your neighbours back yard or a couple of hundred meters away, out of sight, in the top of a tree.

You may not even notice your bees have swarmed as you are working during the day when they swarmed.  You have come past your apiary on your way home and see nothing out of the ordinary, as it looks like most of the bees are in your hive, where they should be at the end of the day!

Its not until you come to inspect your hive a few days later and see a few  open queen cells, brood, no eggs and not many bees.

You have lost your prized queen that you bought for her honey producing qualities and you  have lost her a couple of weeks just before the peak honey flow starts. How can this be avoided! 

How do you stop your bees swarming!

There is much information on this issue . Really the main crux of beekeeping is swarm management. If you can manage your bees and reduce swarming, then you have really mastered beekeeping.

You can add honey supers to give you colonies more space and you can take out a brood frame in the extremities of our colony and spin them if they are full of honey. This will give your queens more space to lay in to but the eventual will happen. Your bees will swarm some time in their queens life.

You will begin to know when your bees are about to swarm. The obvious signs of large amount of brood hatching, the creation of swarm cells and  change in the bees behaviour, to name but a few signs.

Some  people like to use a phsyical control  namly clipping the queens wings. I do not support this practice. It usually results in a messy ball of bees attempting to swarm but with a queen that cant fly. This is a completely unatural thing and results in very confused bees.

If you carry out as many swarm prevention measures as possible and then accept the fact that you will have to deal with a few swarms from your apiary each year you will be managing your bees in a much more natural way and have young stock to take over for the forthcoming years. So the question you are asking is ok but how do I catch the swarms that I might lose? The awnser is simple. You put out swarm traps.

Why put out swarm Traps?

I put out swarm traps for 2 reasons.

1. To allow my  colonies of bees to reach a point in their reproduction where they can swarm freely or they reach a point where they are all about to swarm.I will then go in and artificially swarm my bees . The difficulty in predicting when this is going to happen. It generally happends when the necterflow reaches its peak after a warm wet period.
2. To catch  feral swarms that are natrually produced in the wild. These wild swarms are so improtant in relation to the gene pool we use in beekeeping today. These wild bees have to deal with all that naure can throw at them and yet they still manage to swarm and raise successful colonies.

What is a swarm Trap.

A swarm trap is basically any cavity or box that has been modified to offer a suitable residence for bees that are in the swarming mode. The box must be of an approximate size, have a small entrance that easily guarded, offer good access, have some ready drawn up comb in, that is clean and pest and disease free allowing the colonys queen to start laing within a few hours. The Smell is also important ie previously used nest of deserted colony or a well used Nuc box!

What elements make a viable swarm trap.

Research shows that european honey bees prefer a cavity size of about 40 ltrs.  Thats not to say that some bees won`t swarm in to a smaller or much larger cavity but the results of generally show that this volume is the most acceptable. Dont forget you may think a huge swarm has just gone in to a very small volume container  but its going to be at least 21 days before any young bees are going to be produced and the size of the colony will probably decrease by 10 or 20 % before any new young start to hatch out.

Shape is not important but its stupid to make a swarm trap without thinking of how you can get out the swarm afterwards. Some comercial swarm traps availible on the market are of the lobster pot / papier mache design. Their design does attract swarms but if you are not around within 24hrs to shake your bees in to another sitable container then you are left struggling with a difficult cut out. This is a shame and its the last thing you want to do is give your lovely new colony a load of grief. The best swarm traps are basically used  nucs and hives, though more so nucs, as they are more portable, lighter and less cumbersome to lug around. The other main benefit is that you can leave your swarm trap for 2 weeks or more if you wish, you may catch a swarm the second day after you put the trap out but the bees will start drawing out new comb and get on with establishing their new home

When you find you have caught a swarm you can then easily transfer it in to a new hive or nuc as they have built on to your frames that you just lift out. You can feed your bees easily, treat them agaist mites and generally manage the colony well.

How can you turn new nucs in to old ones

So you`ve just started beekeeping but dont have any old , used nuc boxes.  Theres no point in putting out brand new ply nucs that have only been constructed the day before, you need to get them "hive smelly"  to give them a realistic chance of working and there are 2 ways you can do this.  The obviously most natural way is to transfer a colony of bees in to your nuc and leave it there for at least a couple of  weeks. The other way I call artificial propolisation.

Artificial propolisation.

Propolis is the glue that bees use within the hive to help keep the hive clean and it acts as a sterilant. It is a product from the  buds of trees and shrubs. Bees scrape it off and then return to the hive and use it to close up holes in the hive, seal any open cracks  etc. It has also been known to be used to seal over dead mamals that have died in the hive. You can buy propolis in mail order but thats quite expensive and really the quality is too pure.

The type of propolis you need is the propolis you would find inside an old hive, so what you need to do is first get hold of some well used honey supers. Most beekeepers will lend you some out of season. Just say you are cleaning them up for free and they will be more than hapy to loan them to you!

Next on a large clean table or sheet of ply start scraping out all the old propois and wax you can find. I find a good quality flat edged screwdriver is perfect for this. The most propolised areas are generally under the metal frame supports.  One old honey super will give you half a jam jar full in no time.

Please be careful as you scrape all this out. You can easily slip with the screwdriver or hive tool!

Brush up what you have scraped out regularly. A lot of the debris comes out in a fine powder so be careful not to let it fall to the ground. Dont wear good clothes and be prepared to smell like a bee hive when you have finished.

Removing propolis and wax debris from honey Super.



The scrapings ready for use.



When you have collected up all the little bits that will also include bits of wood , wax as well as propolis. Find a large class jar (about 1 litre in Volume) and then you need to get hold of some very pure alochol. The best place to source this is your local chemist of Pharmacy and you will probably have to explain what you want it for! Try to get the alochol with a minimal odour content as its really improtant that you don`t taint your prepared hive with a different smell and defeat the whole object.

Next, Wearing old clothes, gloves and face protection , mix your hive scrapings and alochol about 1 to 1 in volume.  You will soon see why I say wear gloves. The propolis very quickly dissolves in to the alochol. Put the lid back on to the contained and shake it for at least 10 minutes. Some of the larger propolis will take a fair bit of agitation to get it to dissolve.

Next get your nucs out and spread them over a piece of the garden  or where you wont make a mess. Not on your clean garage floor as you will stain it brown. Leave the nucs upright and open with the frame covers off. You are better off doing this outside in a well ventilated area.

The next stage it to paint the inside of your nucs with your liquid propolis solution.  Don`t try and cover all the inside of your nucs. You will run out quickly as the aclohol will start to evaporate , add more alochol to keep it liquid and also if you find more in the bottom of the jar that has not dissolved but the main object is to keep the solution as thick as possible. Start by painting around and above the entranceway and then try and get some on the side and around the areas where the frame supports are and finally try and get some on the inside of the frame cover. Careful when you do this as its terrible stuff, sticks and stains on everything and is really volatile and flammable.

When you have completed this leave the treated nucs outside for a couple of days to really dry out. If you are doing this in mid spring you will already notice bees taking an interest in the inviting odours coming from your nucs.

To finish the treatment, I go over all the inside of my hive very lightly with a blowtorch. This heats up the surface enough to evaporate away and remaining smell from the alochol and adds a bit of burnt wood smell to the nuc It has been proven that bees dont realy mind this and in nature this smell in common to bees.

What to put in your Nuc as the best atractant.

So you have now got an old nuc to make up as a swarm trap. Bees may well swarm in to this well scented box but there is still more you can do to make it more attractive. The first thing is to try and get hold of some old drawn  up brood comb frames. These are really the one most inprotant thing that will excite scout bees more than anything! Pictured below is one of the frames  Iwas left with last season when a hive became queenless and I was unable to re queen. At the time I was annoyed but  I know now that beekeeping is all about making use of what materials you have. If you loose a colony or two it will give you better chance of catching a swarm  the following spring. If you look closely you will see old comb and lots of different pollen stored in the cells. Thats the best frames of all to use. Also you will notice no sugar or honey! thats another key element you don`t want in the hive, as it attracts mice and other hungry insects not to mention wasps and hornets. Drawn up comb will also enable a queen to start laying within a few hours of arrival if conditions are right.

The best way to get drawn up brood  comb except when you loose a colony is each spring when you open up your hives the bees will have normally emptied the extremities of the hive allowing you to remove 2 old drawn frames and replace them with two of just foundation. As the hive popuation increases in the spring these replacements will soon be drawn up by the need to expand the hive.

If you cant get sugar free drawn up comb you can use brood frames that have sugar stored in the cells but you must try and remove most this.

I find the best way is to do this is by scraping off the surface capings and then using a warm water wash with a fine, strong spray directed directly in to the frame  this does do the trick, but water temperature is critical and it does use quite a lot of water. However needs must!!!! ps dont do this when your wife has just cleaned the kitchen. You won`t be the most popular member of the house. 

 I once asked my beekeeping teacher if I could buy a few of his old frames. They are not for sale I was told. drawn up frames are like hens teeth. Very rare!



Drawn up brood frame with pollen and no sugar or honey.



Other Attractants.

Once you have got at least two drawn up combs in you five framed nuc ( the others being of foundation) you could call this a viable swarm trap but there`s still a couple of things you can do to maximise its attractiveness.




Lemon Grass Oil.

Bees seem to be attracted to many fragrances and indeed there is many a story of older or should I say "more experienced beekeepers" who have secret herbs or balms that they make up every 2 weeks to put in to swarm traps to aid the potency of the hive.  However one of the most well known is lemon grass oil, or  to be strictly correct its the oil from the plant "cymbopogon citratus." Put a few drops of this on some kitchen roll or tissue and then put this in to a small zip lock bag. Don`t fully close the bag, leaving just one corner not quite zipped up.
Bees will sense this and  very  soon check it out.

Nasanov

Nasanov is the natural feromone released by bees. It is used as a calling message to either draw other bees back to the hive or to a newly selected area away from the hive It comes from a gland underneath the bees front legs and when emitting this feromone bees tend to lean forward with their bottoms in the air and fan their wings, sending the scent out and away from them.
By putting Nasanov directly in to your swarm trap you are saying to the bees "come on in here, its ok"
You can buy nasanov in very small ampoules that can be hung on to the inside of one of your frames of drawn up comb. In france the cost about 1 euro each.
It dosent mean that hundreds of bees will suddenly start checking out the smell but the foragers will be very curious and hopefully combined with the smell of the drawn up comb and the old hive they will find this a perfect attraction.
Its always handy to have a spare amoule or two availible during the season. If you have been called to swarm in a place where is difficult to get to, then just put the nasanov in a trap or hive and within 20 mins or so you should see some results. Dont take risks when catching swarms. If the swarm likes your trap or nasanov they will soon move in to what you are offering.
Nasanov can be stored in the freezer untill needed.


Nasanov and Lemon grass oil together?

Well I dont know and haven`t been trapping bees long enough to say whether putting the two in the same trap offers any greather luring potential. Out of preference I would keep the Nasanov in the hive if you have it availible. On the outside of the hive I would dab a bit of lemon grass oil but not too much! and repeat this every 2 weeks if you can.

Nasonov ampoule on the lower part of the middle frame

What actually happends when scout bees find your trap?


When scout bees are sent out to look for suitable places to make a new home in they will find your swarm trap, check it out ,remember where it is and report back to the colony  and pass on this information. However its not just one bee returning with this information that would cause a colony to swarm to your trap.
Over the next few days, weeks, as the colony grows , other scout bees will find the same trap and report back to the colony with the same information. As time of swarming approaches, these reports of the swarm trap are then re investigated by a growing number of bees who will increase their study of this possible site and then when the swarm is issued and the number of reports of this possible home are all the same, the swarm will issue and go directly to the swarm trap, avoiding the need to settle on a nearby position.
The swarm thus goes straight to you trap in an orderly fasion ( as orderly as a swarm of bees can be) and the colony gets to work straight away.

So If you see some bees around your trap and then a couple more the next day, it is likely that a swarm will issue in the next few days.

Trappng swarms from your Apiary

In the same way you can use this as an indicator by watching several swarm traps around your hives.This will give you a very good indication of a forthcming swarm from your own hives. When you see a marked build up of bees coming and going from the swarm trap, its a pretty sure sign that things are about to happen.
I woulds place at least two traps around your own aipary and at a distance of at least 200 meters from your hives. This is shown to generally be  the minimal distance bees like to swarm too. However I know someone who placed a nuc 20 meters from a nest in a tree and the nuc was occupied. But on the other hand was another swarm from somewhere else that came to the trap?

If you think you have  caught a swarm , you see lots of bees coming and going but if you are not sure if it is a colony or just lots of  inquisitive bees, then go  back of an evening. If their are some bees walking up and down the front landing tray then its likely you have a swarm inside. The other way is to give the Nuc a sharp knock on the side walls. If you have a swarm you will hear a loud hiss from all the bees inside fanning their wings in alarm.

Dont repeat this as they will soon send out a reception party!.

If you are sure you have swarm and want to quickly have a look inside the nuc you will be very suprised just how docile the bees are in the first few days. I have frequently opened up a newly hived swarm with little of no reaction from the bees. This is because the queen has not started laying yet and bees have nothing to guard. They know they are more use to the queen and colony alive, so they are very conservative in the defence. This is a lovely time to get really close to your bees and just sit and watch.

Setting your Nuc

So you have spent all this time getting your swarm trap just how the bees will want it but where is the best place to put it?

After you have spent a few years beekeeping places to put your traps wont be difficult to find. You will get calls to get swarms and these places are where you want to put your traps. I had none of these places when I started but within a few years suddenly I have not  got enough traps to my mind and I am putting out 25 this year. I found finding positions  easy as I was fortunate with my job that I have many clients with all sorts of different gardens. If I saw bees there one season I would put a trap there the following and so on untill I kind of begun to know the region I was in.

Its also improtant to say that even if you know the whereabouts of a bee tree or a chimney with a nest of bees in it, its by no means a guarantee that you wll catch a swarm in one season or that the bees will even swarm! So you have to spread your bets and put out more traps in different places.
In years of drought you will see many less swarms and in times of strong wet springs followed by warm summers you will see more swarms but even saying that its impossible to use that as a rule and many other factors determine when and why bees swarm.

Where to place your swarm traps.

The best position seems to be generally south to south west facing ( Northern hemisphere) and the height of  about 1.5 to 2 meters from the ground. Try and place them so that they will get the sun for most of the day and best of all the sun from mid morning to late in the day as a preference. They seem to prefer the sun on the front of the hive as much as possible.  Also try and place you swarm trap in a sheltered spot behind an existing building,  garden wall ,on a granite window sill, so theres no  prevailing wind.  I also favour the use of old tin shed roofs. I am sure that the action of the heat rising from these metal roofs helps advertise the the presence of a hive.

Pests.

The only pest problems you will have with your un inhabited swarm traps are wax moth.
These are natures cleaners that in the wild will lay eggs in to old disused comb and when their larvae hatch out, they will happily munch their way through whatever they can, unfortunately for us that meany the lovely old comb that you have toiled so hard to present to a potential swarm of bees!

There is a treatement for this that is harmless to bees. You just simply spray the top halves of your frames with   Bacillus Thuringensis  . This spore stays on your frames until needed. If it comes in to contact with a larvae of a moth or caterpillar is starts in to growth, consuming it and quickly killing it.

If you dont treat your frames look at the picture below to see just how efficient they are. The middle old drawn up wax frame and they have moved on to the foundation.


Wax Moth Damage!

Swarming Season.

Where we are in France  (North Brittany) the swarming season lasts form the middle of April untill the middle of July but each region is different  and obviously  south of the equator its the reverse.

With all things in nature they are all subject to variation due to climatic differences.


If you get it right and the bees come to your trap then hopefully you will see something like this.
Happy swarm catching!



Transfering from overwintering nucs to brand new nucs.

Well the weather has been exceptional for the bees over the last few days here in Brittany. Apart from the cool mornings  with some low mist, we have had daytime temperatures of 20 degrees. For March this is exceptional. The weather has also been calm making the job of flying a whole lot easier.
There is also a huge amount of food availible. The Salix I talked about a couple of weeks ago is now at its peak, with other trees like sloe (or blackthorn) starting to flower.. For the bees spring has sprung!

Yesterday I has finished work a little earlier and took the opportunity to transfer some of my overwintering nucs, to brand new nucs. The reason for this is simple. I needed the old nucs for swarm traps this year  and have plenty of new spare nucs but not enough old smelly nucs that are gummed up with propolis and have been well used. Thats whats more likely to attract a swarm.

All of my nucs are 5 framed Dadant, so the transfer was very simple. The weather being so good meant I needed very little smoke from my smoker. The bees were in an exceptionally good mood, with not a single attempt to sting ,which makes the job a whole lot easier.

My method is simple and traditional. I move the origional nuc of its stand and put it foreward  by about 1 meter on the floor . I put the brand new nuc in its place and then turn the old nuc around and rest the front lip / landing strip on the other nucs entrance allowing a clear passage of bees not transfered on frames, to walk in to the hive as nothing had happened.

One thing to note is you should always keep your frames in the correct order even if you are transfering in to a larger hive from a nuc. An upset in the brood pattern can cause the queen to slow laying or the colony to stop working as well, until things are re aranged. This is damaging to the spring build up and should be avoided at all costs.

I also always start removing frames from the side of the colony that has  the least amount of brood or drawn up comb. A nuc in early spring may well have only the two centre frames completly drawn up and the two or three surrounding frames are sometimes incomplete allowing you to use this to remove the side frames first ( whichever is the smallest) and allowing you room to ease the middle frames apart carefully and not just yank then  up and out from the middle damaging the colony, bees and Queen in the worst case senario. ( and above all really hacking them off!) The general numbers of bees this time of year are low but  now on the rise. This year it will be another 3 weeks to a month before they are ready to be transfered to normal sized hive .

All of my colonies have nearly doubled in sized since I last treated them ( nearly 2 weeeks ago)  but there is still a long way to go. We are forecast cooler ( more normal) weather for the next few days so I think we will see a rebalancing of things weather wise!  The bees wont be bothered too much. Looking at their frames yesterday theres plenty of pollen and nectar/ loose honey stored away in preparation for a cooler spell.

What we will need more of is rain. We are already in a period of drought continuing from last year. We had some winter rains but nothing like we should have had. Normally we get regular amounts of rain until june but this year, like last year looks as though we are going to  see a repeat,.  Good spring build up with good weather and plenty of spring honey( but most of thats oil seed rape)and hardly any summer honey that crystalises in the frames, (due to lack of moisture) between mid june to mid july during the flowering of the chestnut trees.
Because of this I am going to take a bit of spring honey this year, just in case I end up with nothing at the end of August but I must not be too negative. Its still only march and there is still moisture in the soil. All to often  we see this pattern and then it stays wet for months!

Queenless Nuc.

Regarding that nuc that was queenless and noisy during my last visit, well its good news. There is a new queen ruling the roost but no eggs yet! The bees had completly changed  their behaviour, I found her hiding on the last frame I transfered in to a new nuc. She was not as large as most queens however there a lot that could attribute to that. She may have only just hatched or not completer her mating yet. She may also not have found enough drones to mate with. I will leave her another 2 weeks and if she dosent start laying I will combine the colony with another 5 framed Nuc, in to a 10 frame colony, which will give a good sized colony very quickly in time for some spring honey. The two queens will find each other and battle it out untill one remains. The  strongest remaining queen will then reside and  quicklyget egg laying under way!

Enjoy the weather.

 Queen bee on frame about 2 cms in front of my glove.