This is video of a swarm being installed into an 8-frame Langstroth medium hive. The bees swarmed a few hours earlier (1245 CST) and came from the top bar hive seen in this video. The swarm contained 10,000 or so bees (just a guess), and clustered on a cedar branch just seven feet above ground and 30 feet from their original hive. Capturing them could not have been easier.
The original swarm was captured on April 7, and installed in the top bar hive on April 9. That colony then swarmed again 23 days later because we didn’t provide them with adequate space in their new hive. These bees were comb building machines, drawing 14 complete top bars of near perfect comb in 16 days. On day 16 we added two (or three) additional top bars with plans to inspect the hive on day 21. We weren’t able to get in them on day 21 or 22, and on day 23 they swarmed. For photos of the original swarm being installed, visit:
Slideshow of Swarm Installation into a New Top Bar Hive – 9 April 2011
