# Swarms



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I was reading Bee Culture yesterday during a rain storm (lots of them this year.) a artical about swarming.

Some things I had either forgot or didn't know was swarms usally super sced the queen shortly after they have settled in the new home and the old queen has been pushed to her max to lay eggs and quickly build the colony numbers.

Some times the bees are caught and many of the scouts sent out to find that new home has the swarm so excided about the new found home that they are going to leave the nice box you put them into.

A suggested way to keep the swarm in the new home is to catch the queen and cage her, place two frames of open brood on each side of the queen cage.

I didn't get one paragraph of the article. Raiseing queens from swarm stock is rasing bees bred to swarm. I always thought all bees would swarm when conditions were right. After all isn't it a natural way to increase the populations? Sort of like all animals bread to have little ones to grow and also increase.

These are a couple of things I read yesterday. Author works for the U of Ga.

 Al


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## 1shotwade (Jul 9, 2013)

I once caught a swarm and after getting them in a box they kept seperating. After fingering through the individual groups we found 9 young queens,no old queens.Lots for work and lots of feed later they all made it.9 new boxes of bees!
I also wanted to say, when i catch a swarm i box them in a broodbox,feed them with a boardman entrance feeder and block the entrance with fresh pulled grass.If you get it tight the bees will stay in and after two or three days the grass will wilt and the bees will clean it out. if you can keep them in a box that long they will usually stay.


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