Large summer swarm.

With the weather now settling in to something resembling a decent period of weather the swarms are now coming. A little late but never the less and also timed in accordance with the now bountiful food supply.

 
I got a call this afternoon for a swarm in languenan, very close to my village and luckily was ready to go and collect it. The weather was absolutly pefect, sunny and hot with not much wind.
The bees were extremly docile and to be honest i dont think i would have needed my smock, but never should you assume they will always be like that!

I shook the bees in to the top of the nuc, which fortunatelycontainey a frame of honey from an artificial swarm that hadnt made a queen this spring s they were straight on to that and happy to go straight in!


Once I saw they had started fanning i left the lid off for a while, then moved them slightly swat and put the nuc on the lid of the box to elevate the hive a little.

You can see they are really puoring in in this last short clip. I actually went back home and collected aother 10 framed hive as the swarm was big and they can take the karger hive straight away. On one week they will have drawn up all remaining 9 frames. Swarms are monster comb builders so i will feed them a little too, eventhough there is loads of food around at the moment. It gives them something to do at night!

 I just love being  a beekeeper when the weather is like this!