Thank you one and all for the responses to my "swarm vs. heat" bee question. It did turn out to be a swarm - I had the honor and delight to watch the bees fly up into the treetops in the most magnificent ballet - they swirled around and around, like a living tornado. Thank you Lord, for the opportunity to witness such a sight.

The bees settled in a tree not far from the original hive. However, they found a branch they liked about (*gulp*) 40 feet up!!! Dom, my brave and occasionally foolish husband tried to climb said tree with his treestand. He got up about 30 feet - and the tree started to sway rather alarmingly. Needless to say, he changed his tactics and scooted back down to terra firma. From there, he decided that the only way to get the swarm DOWN was to bring the tree DOWN ('member what I said about brave/foolish?). We cleared the underbrush, laid down some plastic sheets and a large quilt(theory being to catch swarm on an easy to see surface - we missed the above materials by 2 1/2 feet!!!). From there he used the trusty chainsaw and DOOOOOWWWWWNNNN came the tree...

Well, to make a long story even longer, the swarm landed rather abruptly on the ground, and Dom, ever faithful, ever patient, ever NUTS, proceeded to (with an equally nuts friend) collect the slightly stunned bees. The night had fallen and the guys were out there for the better part of 2 hours, gathering the critters into a spare hive(bought for just such an occasion). What truly clinched the whole outrageous evening was when my husband opened one of the other hives (in the dark) to take out a honey laden frame - the bees in that hive let him know in no uncertain terms just what they thought of an evening of honey robbing... Dom suffered his first sting of his infamous beekeeping career(on the unprotected back of his neck), as well as recieving many more through the gloves and the beesuit.

I am relieved to report that the fellas managed to retrieve 90% of the swarm. We add this to a long list of "ooops" we've accumulated over the years, and we will not be forgetting this one for a LONG time.

Thank you again for all your help - oh, by the way, the bees took 4 days before they swarmed - they hung out on the front of the hive even through rain and low 40's temps! So much for what the books say!

-- Judi in CT (ddecaro@snet.net), September 07, 2000

Answers

Congratulations! My husband and son were able to gather a swarm this year, too. Fortunately, however, the bees were on a SHORT tree, so the job of gathering them went fairly smoothly. Sorry to hear about the bee stings suffered by your husband...We learned the hard way that the best time to collect honey is in the middle of a sunny day when the majority of the bees are out collecting pollen, etc., leaving fewer bees to defend the hive against intruders.

-- Liz Rhein (merhein@shentel.net), September 10, 2000.