Today I had my first swarm of the season. What a surprise but the queen said "let's go" and they went. A really nice swarm and I called my neighbor and beekeeper friend Steve to help me out. They were in a crabapple tree, not to far up and it could be done easily enough.
So a ladder, a nuc box with only two frames inside and a broom - easy enough. Bees (lots of bees) a little irriated at being swept around but it worked. The queen was in the box. So lots of bees were left and we decided to sweep again - this wasn't such a good idea. The queen went back to the tree (we didn't know this at the time) and all the bees eventually left the nuc box and they decided to move along.
Steve had got a swarm this morning too and in talking to him later, they also left after being put in a brood box - it wasn't the best of days for swarm catching.
Bye, bye bees!!!!!!!!
