its Pete from cheap homesteading and I just got home and there is a swarm that
moved into my swarm trap I am as static I am really really happy
freebies can't ask for anything better than that
when I say swarm trap that kind of indicates someone intentionally putting
out traps to catch swarms my swarm crabs a little bit of lazy kind
I moved my bee yard a few years and I left a hive body there and the last two
years I've got swarms out of them and I should have left frames in it but I
didn't so they're gonna be building right on the roof we're gonna have to do
a little bit of a cutout maybe it all depends how long they've been there so
let's go there's a few of things you need if you want to go out catch a swarm
or have a cutting you should have elastics some empty frames so you have a
place to put the comb into Queen catcher hive tool and a knife so you can cut the
comb loose and a box I'm gonna bring a nuke this time you can bring a full
sized hive or whatever so what you're gonna want to do is get ready if you
have to do a cutting and a cut out is you're cutting the comb you're setting
it in so what I do is put a bunch of elastics
on the end each end so when I do the cutout I can just move them I don't have
to fiddle trying to get elastics onto it so I want to do at least a couple frames
like this so I can move comb
I have one drawn frame in here hoping that I don't have too much comb to fill
those frames because a hole drawn frame she will start laying like crazy so I'm
kind of hoping I can leave a full frame that's already drawn in there but I
don't want to waste the comb that the hive has already made it's a lot of work
and they work hard at it and she lays right away so we just don't want to
waste that effort I find swarms build up rapidly they come as a swarm but man
they build comb and she just lays so in a very short period of time you can have
a loss of drawn comb they're just they're awesome
very fast okay so I have one extra frame I have the Queen catcher
I have my tools I already went out there and cut back some of the brush because
it was in Seine the brush was insane
I'm hoping I could find something maybe to set my box on so it's a little bit
off the ground but we're going to throw my queen catcher there my hive tool and
my knife we're ready to go
so there you go there it is we got some pretty good numbers coming
out of there I am I should trim this a bit more I need a place to put my nuke
box
okay so let's see what we have going on here
I'm gonna move so we're gonna take a look and see how much they built that
there's some weight so there we go they have almost four comb so I'm gonna have
to try to flip this up this way because the combs go that way and try to leave
them upside down problem is these combs are fresh and they're not as strong as
you would like so what we have to do is find the Queen so I got the Queen
catcher and we're gonna start going through and fitting frames here
saw we got the queen catcher ready and we're gonna look for the Queen I don't
see the Queen
so we're gonna cut the bottom off
very gently
okay
I don't see the Queen
we are gonna move
okay they're not
overly happy that I'm doing this so we're looking for the Queen
I can't find her yet
Hey
looking for the Queen I don't see the Queen so you have to be able to find the
Queen here
so we'll cut a bit off here
don't see the Queen on that one we have some drone
they have some cat rude
so there you go she ain't pretty but she's going in the box he's okay so now
we're looking here I don't see the Queen
so we're gonna cut that's a problem with you this hairy chest
find the Queen and the best of times and when you're cutting the coin loose it
kinda almost gives you a chance step I tail it I don't see her
they don't see the Queen
this and hoping she moved to the end
well there she has
there she is she's the queen I got her so I'm gonna set her down over here and
now we can be a little more aggressive putting these in because we know that
the queen is in the other high not aggressive is the wrong word he can be a
little more time-efficient okay so we're gonna move this cone we're
gonna move this comb we're gonna try to slide this over there that ain't pretty
at all so now I have a drawn frame so I'm gonna throw that in here so I'm
gonna get the Queen and I'm gonna release her into here
okay so there we got the Queen in the box
let's try to knock a whole bunch of these bees in the box
we're gonna throw this here we're gonna throw punch
Hey so what we're going to do is going to
close this up
and lid back just a bit
yeah okay so they will smell the Queen and as soon as if you find it they will
fan fan their wings so the other bees will find the entrance to the hive all
these bees can fly so there's no reason they won't find it okay so this job is
done I'm gonna go take a look at the other hives because I don't know if that
was my queen or not really doesn't matter anyways but I thought I was ahead
of him I didn't believe because I need so many splits I didn't believe any of
the hyzer at a strength that they could swamp
but there is one hive back in my apiary that's making a bit of a ruckus so I
want to make sure that it's not swarming so I'm gonna go take a look so you guys
have a good one