Some days, the Great Bee smiles and whispers to swarming honey bees the path to a loving home.
This was the case recently, with sweet bees stopping to rest in the maple tree in our front yard. We welcomed these visitors with joy and gently settled them into a new home. Here's how...
On a bright Saturday morning, my husband pulled into our driveway and heard the unmistakeable sound of buzzing bees. He peeked overhead, into the maple tree, and saw a traveling swarm had stopped to rest right in our beekeeping front yard! The swarm was not too small and not too big but just right.
The hubs worked quickly but calmly. He pulled his pickup under the tree branch and placed a horizontal ladder atop the truck's toolbox. He also brought out a waiting nuc box, or small hive for a nucleus colony of bees. This box is a good starter size for a small colony, with only five frames to fill with wax and to protect. Any additional escape routes were covered over, leaving only one entrance open at the front of the box. The bottom of this box is screened for ventilation.
Reaching up, he used loppers to gently cut the branch from the tree, far enough away from the clustered swarm to ensure they would not be disturbed or harmed.
The branch with the swarm still attached was lowered into the nuc box. Bees, sensing the Queen's pheremone, should make their way to her. If the hubs was successful, the Queen would be in the nuc box and the remaining bees would begin their journey into the box to join her. We soon saw that this was the case and watched as bees made their way through the entrance and clustered on the screened bottom.
After about 20 minutes, the branch was slowly removed and the frames were added one by one, floating and then sinking slowly into the bees in the box. The lid was added to the box.
My husband also invited the neighbors over to watch the process! They loved seeing something they'd never witnessed before and were fascinated by how gentle the bees are.
These bees quickly filled out the frames in the nuc box with lovely beeswax, pollen and nectar stores, and sweet baby bee brood. The five full frames were moved into an 8-frame hive, giving the bees more room to grow their colony's numbers and stores for the winter ahead. They now reside in the barn red hive behind the bottle tree, nestled among honey bee neighbors.
