Article:"Sting Operation..."

Bethany, a former student of mine and now facebook friend, sent me this story of a swarm in Rhode Island.

SWARM!!!!

  

As Monta and I were eating a rather late leisurely breakfast, we heard our son, Eli, colorfully exclaim that thousands of  honey bees were flying about our backyard beyond Beelandia. The two of us, with our daughter, Eme, ran out to join Eli, and discovered that what Eli was observing was  a swarm of bees leaving one of our hives and taking a rest stop in a thornless honey locust tree in a neighbor's yard. 

Eme, Monta and I took immediate action. Eme and I put together a bait hive in an unused deep and the three of us ran off to the neighbor's house to ask for permission to leave the bait hive there. The neighbor was calm and cool about the whole situation. She had heard about the decline in the bee population and was only too happy to allow us to catch the swarm. (It was just too high in the tree to cut down.) 

Monta and Eme kept watch on the swarm while I checked Beelandia. The swarm seemed to have issued from Plan Bee..., the top bar hive filled with carniolans. When I got to Beelandia, this hive was still very active with two afterswarms here and there on the plants. By the time I assessed the situation with the hives, however, the initial swarm flew off and not into the bait box we left. Monta ran about the neighborhood  trying to discover where the swarm might've gone to but could not find it.

We were philosophical about the loss of the swarm, figuring we gave something back to "nature". I did place one of the afterswarms in a double nuc box, along with some brood, drawn comb, and honey from the other carniolan colony. We will see what happens with this nuc.