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A perfect swarm

A week after the flurry of swarms abated and the summer solstice passed, I decided swarm season was over. As in other years, the swarms happened all at once—a storm of swarms—and now all was quiet.

Although it was late in the day and beginning to get dark, my husband suggested we walk to the upper hives. This was more for exercise than anything else. At first I hesitated, but then I agreed to go.

It was a beauteous evening, warm and peaceful. We trekked up the hill, passing bait hives and swarm traps. We stopped briefly at the top of the hill and then retraced our path.

My husband was ahead of me on the way home. Suddenly I heard an “Ohmygod!” Based on his tone, I assumed he stepped on a slug.

But when I caught up, he was staring at the swarm trap we had passed minutes earlier. Hanging beneath it was a picture-perfect swarm—huge, symmetrical, and so quiet we had missed it earlier. We were amazed.

Because it was getting dark fast, we literally ran down the hill, loaded the pickup with a bait hive, an eight-foot ladder, and a few tools. We drove up the gravel road to a spot not far from the swarm.

I prepared the hive as my husband erected the ladder. When he lifted the trap from the nail, the swarm remained all of a piece except for a few dozen bees that clung to the tree. With military precision, the bees were all parallel with heads towards the sky.

With a solid thump against the hive, I dumped the entire swarm into the top box. It dropped like lead. I have never handled such a docile swarm. It stayed put with very few fly-ups. Maybe it was the time of day or the rapidly dropping temperature. I don’t know for sure, but it was cool.

Early the next morning, I found no bees at the entrance but many bees ringing the outside of the hive near the top. A few had migrated back their former spot beneath the swarm trap. I thought perhaps they wanted an upper entrance, so I made one.

Within minutes, the bees were fanning madly at the new entrance. Within two hours everyone was inside the new hive, including the group from the swarm trap. Now, a week later, the bottom entrance is bustling and the inhabitants are as busy as . . . well . . . bees.

Rusty

A perfect swarm. The eight-foot ladder in the foreground gives an idea of the height.
A perfect swarm. The eight-foot ladder in the foreground gives an idea of the height.

One trap catches two swarms . . . at the same time

The next morning everything was the same, that is, one swarm in the alder, one in the cypress, and one in each of the two swarm traps. I had other things to do, so I didn’t look again until noon when—you guessed it—more surprises.

The cypress swarm was still in place, but very active. The huge swarm in the alder was gone. Vanished. The uppermost swarm trap seemed to be empty as well—I saw only scouts. But the second swarm trap was overflowing with bees at the opening plus there was a humongous swarm hanging from the bottom.

Was this outer swarm the one from the alder? Or was it an entirely different swarm? I have no clue. I put a hive together and, standing beneath the swarm trap, dropped the bees into a cardboard box with a rake. I had to do this several times but, ultimately, the swarm covered all ten frames of the new box. Do I have a queen? I’ll have to wait to know for sure.

By the time I went down to the house for a break, the cypress swarm was gone. I felt bad for it because it was kind of small and wouldn’t last long. I think it was a secondary or tertiary swarm, just based on its size.

With my husband’s help, I prepared another hive and he took down the occupied swarm trap. I couldn’t believe it: the trap was level full of bees. I don’t see how they got in or out. Three small combs had been started, but I didn’t see any eggs.

Here’s my question: did one swarm decide on that bait hive after the other swarm already moved in? Or had they decided earlier, waited too long, and then arrived only to find it full? How did this all happen? The unusual stuff is never in the books . . . and almost everything bees do is unusual.

Although I have one virgin queen and two old queens in reserve, I’m going to rear some more since I just don’t know how many I’m going to need. Anyway, that’s the end of the swarm story for now. I hope it slows down because I’m flat out of bee boxes.

Rusty

The other large swarm is on the inside of this trap.
The other large swarm is on the inside of this trap.
About ten minutes after raking, bees start to gather again.
About ten minutes after raking, bees start to gather again.
Much later, my husband retrieves the second swarm.
Much later, my husband retrieves the second swarm.

“A swarm in June . . .” No, make that two

The noise got louder as I walked up the hill. It was coming from the vicinity of the middle hive stand, which is on a steep incline. At first I thought the swarm was down the hill from where I stood, so for a few moments I thrashed through the underbrush looking for it. But as I listened more carefully, I realized it was overhead. My fleeting hope of catching it was dashed.

It took a long time to pinpoint the swarm because the racket from the other hives was confusing. But I finally spotted it, high in a red alder.

If you know anything at all about the Pacific Northwest coast, you know we grow trees like nobody’s business. They go up and up—nothing like those cute little saplings they have back east.

Now, nearly any bee book will tell you that a newly issued swarm will land within a few yards of the parent hive while it re-groups and decides where to live. Well, this is true if you’re talking about the horizontal direction. But while these bees landed about three yards east of the hive, they were many yards away in the vertical direction. Books never tell you that.

This was a huge swarm, much bigger than the one in the cypress. But even with a telephoto lens, I could barely see the thing. I examined the three hives below it and, of course, I couldn’t figure out where it came from. They all looked just as busy as before, although I’m sure it came from one of the three.

So, with two swarms treed within minutes of each other, I decided to check my bait hives. Three of them already had looky-loos—bees flying in, then out, examining the exterior, going back in. House hunting, I suppose, then checking out the local schools, shopping, parks, and freeway access. The swarm traps, as usual, showed no activity.

I watched the bait hives now and again till nightfall, but the swarms were quiet. It was clear they would spend the night in the trees, discussing moving companies, home inspections, and financing terms.

To be continued . . .

Rusty

You can barely see the swarm in the alder tree.
You can barely see the swarm in the alder tree.

A hive stand fit for a queen . . . or a swarm

Here is a handy little hive stand I like to use for my mating nuc. My husband built it from just one eight-foot 2 x 4 board for the uprights (in this case Douglas-fir) and two eight-foot 1 x 4 boards for the horizontal pieces (in this case cedar.) Although it would not be stable enough for a complete hive with supers, it is great for the mating nuc which never gets any higher than one deep box.

My mating nuc is just a brood box divided into four 2-frame sections. Each section has its own entrance—one entrance per side. The small hive stand is great for this because I can orient it so each side has plenty of clearance for the bees to come and go. In addition, the stand is just the right height for me to comfortably check on the queens’ progress and look for eggs—I don’t have to climb up or squat down.

Once a new queen is laying eggs, I just move that frame into a regular nuc and add a fresh frame with eggs, young larvae, or queen cells into the mating nuc. It would not be easy to mass-produce queens like this, but it is a great way to produce a few queens for your own use. The dividers in the nuc box are removable, so you can also configure it as two 5-frame sections, one 5-frame section and two 2-frame sections, or just one regular 10-frame box.

This year I’m going to use a second one of these little hive stands for my bait hive. That will put the entrance about two feet high—not great but better than having it on the ground. If I manage to catch a swarm, I will move the swarm into a regular hive and then set up the bait hive again. So just like the mating nuc, the bait hive won’t be more than one brood box high.

Rusty

Small hive stand. I use paving stones to help with leveling and drainage.
Small hive stand. I use paving stones to help with leveling and drainage.

My design for a bait hive

I have been using two of the commercially available flower-pot shaped swarm traps for years. Each year I hang them up at the recommended height (8-12 feet) and facing the recommended direction (south or southeast). Each year I purchase fresh pheromone lures (the three-component USDA-endorsed type) and each year I check the traps every day during swarm season. At the end of the year I take them down and store them. Storage is the worst part because they are huge and oddly shaped.

Of course, I have never caught a swarm in one and probably never will. I persist in hanging them up every year because I paid for them—or, more to the point, I paid for the oversize postage. So I will most likely continue this ridiculous pastime until they disintegrate, or until I do, whichever comes first.

But last year after a swarm settled into my empty top-bar hive, I became absolutely enthralled with the idea of building a bait hive from old bee boxes and frames. If I can catch anything it will probably be my own swarms, but that is fine. I’d rather catch my own then have them go off into the woods or nest in my neighbor’s barn. In fact, my bees seem healthy and I’d rather not introduce bees with an unknown provenance into my apiary.

According to Thomas Seeley in Honeybee Democracy, bees on the run prefer a nesting cavity that is approximately 40 liters. This morning I measured the inside dimensions of a deep brood box and it came to 14.75” x 18.38” x 9.63” or 2610.74 cubic inches (they really add up.) I ran this through Convert and came up with 42.78 liters. So, one deep brood box should do it.

Seeley also says that bees prefer an entrance that is 15 cm2. Again using Convert this comes to 2.33 square inches. (Sorry, but as a denizen of Fahrenheitland, I think in inches.) The square root of 2.33 is 1.53. So I can use a square hole of 1.5 inches on a side or a circular hole with a diameter of 1.72 inches (2.33=3.14r2).

I measured the larger opening on my entrance reducers and it is 5.2” x 0.38” or 1.95 square inches. So the question is this: should I enlarge the rectangular opening, or should I make a circular or square opening? Seeley says bees don’t have a preference for entrance shape, but all his nest box photos show square holes.

Just for fun I calculated the area of the entrance in the top-bar hive that the swarm moved into last year. It consists of three one-inch diameter holes. When I calculate the total area, it comes to 2.36 square inches (A = 3.14 x 0.52 x 3). Amazing! Just 0.03 square inches different from Seeley’s ideal size! Seeley never mentions whether the entrance area can be piecemeal, but it is an interesting question.

To make this easy, I think I will mount the brood box on a regular bottom board and block off part of the standard entrance. The entrance is 0.75” high, so I will allow a little over 3 inches of it to remain open (2.33/0.75 = 3.11). Okay, that’s two questions answered.

Height of the bait hive is the third issue. According to Seeley, bees prefer to nest high in the trees. (The wild hives he found averaged 21 feet off the ground.) But in his experiments, most of his bait hives were low to the ground. My top-bar hive is only about two feet off the ground. So I think I won’t bother trying to suspend this thing from a tree because, for me, it is just too heavy and impractical. I will just put it on one of my regular hive stands, face it south, and call it good.

From my reading in the past few months, I’ve learned that drawn comb that previously contained brood is one of the biggest attractants for a swarm, so I will definitely use old comb. Slumgum has also been mentioned as a swarm attractant, so I will smear some of that near the entrance. I will dispense with the regular lemongrass attractant because I have used that in my swarm traps for years to no avail.

So there you have it: my plans for a bait hive. About the only things I have to do are find some used brood comb, cut an entrance reducer, render some wax so I can collect slumgum, and then smear the stuff around. Mud pies for adults. I will let you know what happens.

Rusty
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