Swarm Season

A guy at the bee store sparked my interest in trapping swarms. My original plan was simply to stick with our own hives, get a good handle on management and once we felt like we had a good handle on that aspect of beekeeping, we might explore the idea of swarm trapping. However, we are currently beeless. Bees are expensive (about $200 per hive…just for the bees) and a swarm trap cost me $39. 

Now, what is a swarm. Well, as a new beekeeper it was something we feared! Go out to check on your hive and half the bees or all the bees would be gone. Devastating. Maybe they swarm due to mismanagement? A good beekeeper won’t have bees that swarm? Maybe? I’m not sure…still learning. Swarming seems to be a natural bee behavior of a strong hive. I guess we still have things to learn about WHY bees swarm but for now…we are hoping for a swarm.

With the help of our drone bee we have placed our swarm trap in a tree.

 It is set with three frames of empty drawn comb and three frames of foundation. We have also added a lemongrass scent. Now we wait and watch.

Should we happen to attract a swarm and they actually settle in…it will be interesting to see how we get the trap out of the tree. Typically our drone only does the manual labor NOT involving actual bee interaction but I’m not really excited about climbing the ladder, in a bee suit, to retrieve a box of bees. However, this is a “problem” I hope to have! Should we actually catch a swarm it should make for an interesting next blog! 

-Worker Bee 2021