NOTE:  This is not Best of Bee Material...feel free to delete at will!
:-)
 
Location:  Eastern Tennessee,  USA.
Total Hives:  Two
Experience:  Starting third year.
 
Hello all!
I would like to share the experience of my first swarm....I learned a
lot!
 
First a little history...
 
My first year, I started out with one hive....it was given to me by a man
who had  it for about 5 years, it had not been tended or opened in about
two years.  I had to pretty much replace everything (good experience) a
little at a time (too little $$!)  It did pretty well during the fall,
but died because of mites that winter.
 
Year two (last year) I started with two 5 pound packages hoping to get
honey that year.  One package did well the other did not.  (I drowned the
queen with a leaky hive top feeder (MORE good experience).  I bought a
nuc to replace the lost colony, most of which spontaneously joined with
the other package.  I faithfully used terramycin, grease patties, Apistan
AND wintergreen oil fed at the entrance in syrup (double whammy!?)  I got
60 pounds total surplus, and left most of the fall flow for the girls.
 
The hives wintered VERY well, and since we had a mild winter, required a
third brood chamber (deep) for room early in the season.  I wanted to
stimulate brood rearing in order to get two good splits and thus have 4
hives total, so I fed 10 gallons of syrup, which the bees took quickly.
NOW, mega pollen, mega honey and three to four weeks produced MEGA bees!
Both were bursting at the seams!  I thought I would split on Monday or
Tuesday...and on Sunday (Easter) I got a call that my bees had been
flying a LOT in front of the hive on Saturday, and were clustering on the
landing board today.
 
I went to check things out, and when I got there the activity had died
down a bit.  I started walking toward the hives to inspect them and saw
the prettiest swarm you ever did see only 20 feet from the hives.  The
catch?  It was also 20 feet UP on the very tip of a branch in a tree!  No
problem, I thought!  I've read the material, watched the tapes, I'm green
but it can be done!  I set up the ladder and saw that there was a 4 inch
branch obstructing my way to the swarm branch, about 8 feet below it.
I'll saw it off...no problem.
 
I got it almost sawed off when the owner of the farm where I keep them
said..Their starting to fly a bit.  I stopped..looked at them and decided
to cut the last 1/2 inch of the obstructing limb and see what they did.
Before I got finished....you guessed it...they all left the tree!  They
flew up the hill to a pine thicket and flew around for a while and
several of them flew back to the hive and exposed their glands and began
marking with pheromone, I suppose (tails VERY high and fanning like
crazy).  Now the original swarm was about the size of TWO basketballs (I
got Pictures!), and I know they ALL couldn't have gone back.  I went up
the hill and heard bees.  I looked up and about 60 feet up in the very
top of a pine was the remainder of the swarm (1 Basketball size now).  I
sighed and said goodbye to them....
 
I then decided it was time  for help, and one of the local experts came
out and helped me split the two remaining hives (which STILL had loads of
bees).  Now I have 4 fairly strong hives which I plan to feed and pray
lots over...hoping for a surplus this year.
 
Sorry for the length of this ...you still with me Andy?  ;-)   Hope
someone got a been-there-done-that chuckle out of all this!  And for the
rest of you....May all your swarms be no higher than 10 feet!
 
Steve Creasy-                           (\
Maryville, Tennessee USA   {|||8-
Proverbs 24:13, 25:16            (/
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