Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: nickcarraway
Free bees.

Here's what you need:

1. A large cardboard box with a tight-fitting lid.

2. Your smoker with plenty of burlap and/or straw.

3. A queen cage with a sugar plug and a wire.

4. Duct tape.

5. Your veil and gloves if you're a chicken.

6. A spare brood box with foundation and hopefully some drawn comb.

Put the large box under the bees.

Smoke the bees.

Poke through the swarm gently to find the queen.

Cage the queen.

Put the queen in the large box.

Scoop the bees into the box.

Let it sit a little while for strays to come to the queen.

Close the box.

Take the box to your beehive. Install the queen's box between two frames. Dump the bees in, and leave the large box out front.

Congratulations! You now have free bees!

9 posted on 08/01/2012 2:43:14 PM PDT by AnAmericanMother (Ministrix of ye Chasse, TTGS Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies ]


To: AnAmericanMother

Its neat to watch someone who knows what they are

doing capture a big swarm

My momma was mowing earlier in the summer and didn`t

notice a Rose of Sharon had a swarm and hit it

The Cub Cadet sat out in the front yard for a coupla

hrs covered in bees before they departed


10 posted on 08/01/2012 2:53:14 PM PDT by Harold Shea (RVN `70 - `71)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies ]

To: AnAmericanMother

I don’t think you need to cage the queen. I caught a swarm this spring and dumped them on a sheet in front of an empty brood box. After a few minutes they all walked up the sheet into the hive entrance. First swarm I ever caught and they’ve been doing Ok so far. It is a little late in the year for a swarm, must be a great year for the bees in Sweden!


14 posted on 08/01/2012 3:29:34 PM PDT by Dan Cooper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies ]

To: AnAmericanMother

Sounds like a textbook example of Francis Bacon’s truism that nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. I suspect that any brute-force attempt to remove them would not end well.


24 posted on 08/02/2012 12:27:33 PM PDT by Squawk 8888 (Tories in- now the REAL work begins!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies ]

To: AnAmericanMother

Finding the queen and caging her are not steps that are included in my swarm collections. Take an empty deep (brood chamber) and scoop the bees in or whatever maneuver best collects the balled bees. Have never lost a queen. Most of the time I even skip the cardboard box.


27 posted on 08/02/2012 1:29:52 PM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde (Don't wish doom on your enemies ... plan it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson