Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Biggest swarm ever, 40' up in my tree

Late in the season last year, I made a split, which I wasn't even sure if it would make it through the winter in one deep. This spring it has surprised me by taking off with great speed. I have added 3 boxes on to it and just checked the other day that they still had storage room. What I have been doing since I have been so darn busy is checker boarding my brood. Checker-boarding is freeing up brood space by inserting empty frames. BBEBBEBEBB. B=brood, E=empty frame. I heard the noise and wondered which hive was going. To my suprise, once again, it was this hive, not the hive that is bearding and 7 boxes deep, so you know I haven't dug all the way down into the brood.
Off they go!
WAY up the tree right next to the hive.
It took me a while but I managed to hoist a hive with some drawn comb up the tree to try and entice them to move in before it rains (fingers crossed, knock on wood, ect) tomorrow. I didn't put any stores in there and that was a mistake. I'm not doing redoing the hanging of that hive so I will have to hope that the drawn comb is enough lure.
Look for the orange strap lower right and bees upper leftish. Long ways apart.

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