Catching Swarms

There are lots of things to love about Southern Illinois in the spring.  Since we've started keeping bees, one of the things to add to that list is catching swarms.  The fun way is to wait for a report of a large clump of bees hanging on a branch, a building, or a bush, then going out and getting them to go into a box prepared for them.  The easy way is to put out a baited box and let the bees find it. 

So far this year, we've caught two swarms that way, one from my grandfather's farm, and one from Ruth's brother and sister-in-law's place.  These swarm traps, or bait boxes, are baited with some old comb, and coated on the inside with propolis and slum-gum. 

Propolis is a resinous mixture that honey bees produce.  They use it as a glue, caulk, binder, to entomb foreign bodies in the hive, and it makes the frames stick together in a way no human invention could.  We scrape the propolis off of old frames and hives, save it, then mix it with grain alcohol to use as a sort of paint for the inside of the bait hives.  Slum-gum is the black residue left after melting beeswax, and it is also spread on the inside of the boxes.  This makes the swarm trap smell like an old hive to the bees.  Since bees like to move into a space previously occupied by another colony, it makes it much more inviting than a brand new, clean, freshly painted box.

Once a colony moves in, we give them a few days to get established.  A freshly swarmed colony is a comb building machine, gorged on honey and ready to go to work as soon as they move in.  In the box, the workers start building new comb, and the queen starts laying eggs as quick as they can.  Once they have brood to defend, the colony is much more likely to stay in their new home.  We can judge when they have brood by watching the bees coming into the hive.  If they are bringing in pollen, that means they have brood to feed, and they're pretty much settled in.

We learned this lesson the hard way last year.  I moved the traps back to our apiary as soon as the bees were in the trap and transferred them into a hive.  Since they hadn't really established in the hive, four out of the six swarms we caught absconded, taking off and searching for greener pastures.

So after a col, wet spring, we're happy to see the swarm season moving into high gear.  We're hoping for lots more swarms to make lots more hives so we can make lots more of those Ruth & John's products you know and love.