She Found This In Her Tree And Immediately Called Me
Here I am at it again having my own fun with honey bees.
In this episode, I get a call from a homeowner in Gadsden, Alabama that heard a loud noise and went outside to find a huge swarm of bees had landed in a small tree in her yard. When I got there, they said they actually had swarms. The other was way up in another tree. As I looked at the second swarm I realized that it actually wasn't a swarm, but where the other had came from. How cool it was to find an actual bee tree thriving in nature and to capture a swarm from it.
After getting all my gear ready to capture the swarm and set them up to move to my apiary ( bee yard) I started to do my normal temperament test and they quickly let me know they were not in a good mood. Swarms generally are very docile as they are not really protecting their hive like when they were in the original location about 50 ft away. but today, these ladies were very on edge. So I put a little smoke to them and they calmed down very nicely. Smoke is used to break their communication pheromones' that can be used to "attack" what they feel is a threat to them. Although they didn't jump right on me, they let me know fast they didn't like me being there.
Once they settled down, the fun of finding the queen bee was my next priority. When catching swarms, if she can be caught and caged, it makes controlling the rest easy. They follow her and also won't leave her. So caging her helps to lock them to a hive that I give them to get started over.
She was a pretty sneaky lady. I saw her a few times but never had a safe chance to capture her. At some point she slipped into the hive and it took a little bit to find her but she finally stepped into view and gave up the fight.
I let the bees settle in to the new box and went back later that night and carried them to a location where they could go back to being bees and rebuild a new home for their momma queen.
this colony of bees is still doing great. by 2022 they will be producing honey that I can share with family and friends and hopefully split into more colonies.
Thanks for stopping by and watch for new episodes to come soon. I have a really cool direction the channel is going and I look forward to sharing some awesome bee adventures with you again.
Yappy Beeman is a professional bee remover performing live honey bee removals in Alabama as "Alabama Bee Rescue" and relocates them to apiaries away from residential areas so they can rebuild and thrive as a honey bee colony producing honey. Yappy is an Alabama Beekeepers association member that has performed over 1000 live bee removals. Yappy with the help of his great friend and mentor; @Jpthebeeman, a professional beekeeper , has learned many skills to remove bee swarms and honey bee colonies safely for the bees and homeowners alike.
7 авг 2021
