Don’t know why
There’s those bees up in the sky
Swarmy weather…
May is swarm season in Michigan, and swarm season can get a little crazy. This year it seems crazier than most. I spent the early part of May working hard to keep up with my bees, with the goal of managing swarming. If you want to know more about what that involves, you can read about it here. We had three very cool weeks leading up to the typical start of swarm season, during which I could not get into the hives to check on the bees and they could not get out to swarm. The onset of warm weather in the first week of May brought a period of intense work in the bee yards to get splits done. But, after an exhausting two weeks, only my smallest 4 hives had not been split, so all was good.
Three days ago I got a call asking me to come collect a swarm in Waterloo. It is a bit of a drive for me, but the caller said they had been calling around for 2 hours and had not found anyone to come pick up the swarm. The hives in my apiaries were all squared away and given my excellent swarm management plan, I wouldn’t have swarms here! But I needed a swarm to start a new colony in a top bar hive, a different hive style then I usually use.
And what if I didn’t get any other swarm retrieval calls? I have been on the swarm call list for the Michigan Beekeepers Association for a number of years, and I only get an occasional call. So, I said yes, and off I drove to Waterloo. I brought back a nice big swarm (and hopefully their queen) . It is now hard at work in the top bar hive. The following morning, as I headed out to check on my hives, this is what greeted me!.
So much for best laid plans. This nice sized swarm was sitting directly in front of one of my 4 unsplit hives. I tilted up the top box of the hive and peered underneath. Sure enough, swarm cells! Darn those bees. At least, they were kind enough to stay close to the ground. I came back with a box, and a pair of clippers to free up some branches from the bush, so they could be more easily dropped into the box. A few minutes later they were all nicely settled in a temporary hive. The day went well in the bee yard. I did find another of the hives I had not already split making preparations to swarm, but I was able to get that queen and some workers out into a nucleus hive (nuc)box. Problem solved.
That evening I got a call about a swarm of bees in Ann Arbor. Having had my fill of swarms for the day, I sent a beekeeper friend after it. The following day, my phone was quiet, but I had lots of scout bees at my swarm traps at the farm, telling me there was a swarm out there looking for a new home. In the middle of the afternoon I found a swarm moving in to one of the traps. At least those bees are already caught, so all I need to do is bring down the trap from the tree and put the bees in a hive. However, the scout bees at the other swarm traps didn’t decrease, which had me on alert for another swarm. Then, on our evening goat walk, as we passed through the main bee field, I noticed a dark clump hanging in one of the trees. “Oh man”, I said to friend Sue, who had joined me for the goat walk, “That’s a swarm. I better go get some stuff.” As I turned to go she said. “Ah, Becky… I think that is two swarms?!”
I turned to look again. She was right. There were two small swarms hanging in the tree directly in front of a hive that was supposed to be hard at work making a new queen. Or in this case, apparently many new queens, since those small swarms were almost certainly virgin queen swarms.. They happen when a hive makes too many new queens. At least they were easy to reach with a short step ladder and both were quickly in nuc boxes. And if those queens have successful mating flights, I will have a couple of nucleus hives with new 2023 queens to use for queen back ups. Not the optimal queen breeding strategy, but, hey, I like to look at the bright side. And I was only a little late for my scheduled phone call with the president of the Michigan Beekeepers Association… who said, “Hey, by the way I got a call about a swarm in Chelsea. Any interest in going to get it?” No thanks!!!!
Then, this morning, as I headed off for my run, I ran right into the middle of another swarm, just settling on a tree in the bee field.
I am still not exactly sure where it came from, but certainly one of my hives! URGHHH! This one wasn’t going to be so simple to put in a box. Plus I had a commitment to help with a 3rd grade pond critter field trip. I quickly set up a box on a step ladder, with a lure of old comb, and leaned it right against the swarm. I was hoping they would take hint and do me the favor of putting themselves in the box. I went off to play with third graders. When I got back, the bees had declined to help me out, so I spent 30 minutes brushing them out of the tree, trying to get them into the box. They flew back up into the tree over and over again, but I must have finally gotten the queen down, because after I gave up and walked away they settled into the box.
While I was still standing on a step ladder, surrounded by a large cloud of irritated bees, my phone rang, twice, from the same number. Needless to say, I didn’t answer at that moment, but when I got back inside I checked my messages. “This is Michael. I got your name from the Michigan Beekeepers website. I have a swarm of honey bees at my house. Can you come and get it?” I called back to give him someone else’s name and number.