Catching a swarm...

 Catching a swarm...

This actually happened last year but I never got around to posting it.  I was called by a friend that said there was a swarm in Moscow that needed rescuing.  I had an empty hive box so I headed there.  It was a fairly small swarm and it was not too high up in the tree so this was all promising...

I laid a tarp on the ground under the swarm and then cut the branch off that the swarm was hanging on.  Again, luckily, it was a small branch and I could just cut it off with a lopper...I set the swarm box on the ground and opened it up...the bees started marching into the box...

This is kind of the slow part...waiting for the bees to all climb into the box...

More waiting...

Here is a little video that I made of the bees going into the box:

Finally got them into the box and too them home.  I took the frames out of the swarm box and put them into the hive...

So, that was last year and I am so sad to say that this hive did not make it through this past winter.  I only had one hive make it through the winter and that is the hive that swarmed a couple weeks ago.  Here is a video of the bees right after they came out of the hive...they ended up hanging out on an apple tree but when I went back to get them, they had left...

Side note: Both of these swarms occurred on June 24th which is the Feast of the birthday of St. John the Baptist.  He is known for eating only locusts and honey...I just thought this was a neat coincidence.  

Have an eggcellent day!

~Denise