Bee Buzz

Worked the garden bees yesterday. The sun came out, after a cloudy morning and the air literally vibrated with the number of bees streaming out of the hives! I hustled into my gear and loaded up, convinced that all of those hives were swarming! LOL! They were going to get food. All were stuffed full of bees, brood, and stores. I added room and helped along the two that were queenless with cells from other hives. I also made a nuc (5 frame hive) from a spare queen cell and 4 frames. I also removed the feeders since there's a nectar flow. Made my day to see how well they are doing.

Today I'll do the Driveway bees and tonight I'll move the nucs we made from swarms to the garden apiary, or maybe to a friend's house several miles away for a week and then back to the garden apiary. If I do the latter they will not lose their small foraging forces since the area will be completely new to them. In familiar territory the foragers will return to the place the hive used to be. Since it has moved they will be forced to go into another hive, where they will be welcomed and allowed to join the foraging force for that hive. The weak nuc will be weakened more by the loss of its food gatherers. In strange territory the foragers will reorient and then return to the new place, since all the landmarks have changed.