Removing a bee swarm
An evening pause: We’ve had two bee swarms at my house in Tucson in the past decade. With the first we made the terrible mistake of taking the advice of an exterminator who destroyed it. The second time we knew better and simply waited 24 hours for them to move on.
The bee remover here removes them, but wisely without harming them. And he does it in a manner that will both surprise you and make you cringe.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
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Excellent video. I’ve only captured one swarm this year. Never been lucky enough to find the queen like that on a swarm.
NavyNuke-
That, is interesting!
Any amusing anecdotes?
(Personally, In my area, we’re knee-deep with Deer, Turkey, and Pheasant. )
Glenn Beck: The Bees Know…
(2015)
https://youtu.be/epSIefw3faE
4:28
Who remembers the episode of the Outer Limits (original series), “ZZZZ?” (Episode 18, 1964)
–>”An entomologist is developing a machine to communicate with bees. Unknown to him, a queen bee has taken on human form in order to mate with him to advance her species….”
or maybe this …..
Blind Melon –
“No Rain” (The Bee Girl cut, 1992)
https://youtu.be/3qVPNONdF58
4:06
Bees are not aggressive while swarming. They have no hive to protect.
Noah-
–How “territorial” are they? I have 2 neighbors that keep bees, always wondered if they have ‘border-disputes.’
(not to go off the deep-end, but whatever happened to the whole ‘killer-bee’ thing? Or the more recent ‘hive-collapse” thing?)
@Wayne Colonies are actually not very territoral past their front porch/landing pad. Field bees returning will actually tend to “drift” between hives. If you have a row of five of six hives set up in a line, you find that the populations of the ones of each end of the line tend to be a bit higher than the hives in the middle.
@Noah In those first couple of days they’ve gorged themselves for the move and tend to be fat, dumb, and happy. If their scout bees haven’t found a new home after about day three, I’ve found that they can be a bit grumpy.
Africanized bees are still an issue. They don’t cluster well in winter time and will die out. This limits them to the southern tier states. Colony collapse disorder is still a problem, though it tends to affect commercial beekeepers who run migratory pollination operations, and not hobbyists.
I sent this to my sister in Colorado, a long time bee keeper with hives producing super honey.
She commented that she has never looked for nor found a queen in all of her swarm experiences, she was impressed with the video.
She said that she removes the top of a hive box and just gently shakes / brushes them down and in, always profitable. Locals love her when the swarms show up.
NavyNuke: The colony collapse disorder is still a problem, and those migratory pollination operations, those who truck multiple hives around the country following the crop seasons, have been identified as the culprits as those spreading the colony collapse disease. The “illness” has been attributed to the pesticides used in the fields which are nicotine based. Bad stuff.
I have not been following the subject now for a few years. Living in coastal central CA, the agriculture folks were very concerned, as their pollinators were dying off in massive numbers. The colonies having been transported, and used, across the central and southern states.
FYI, a honey bee will not live much longer than one month, and during that time add about one drop of honey to the hive. I forget the miles flown, but those critters labor for their queen.
Should the Pollinators die, we will not be far behind.
Buy Local American Honey ! Read the labels, a lot of Asian honey is cut with corn syrup etc.
NavyNuke / Alex-
Thanks!