Swarm moves in

My bee mentor, Mr B, had collected a bee swarm the day before in a wooden box and kept them overnight at home in his cellar. He asked me if I would like to have it.

He was fairly sure he had managed to capture the queen as the swarm was peaceful but of course could not guarantee in what condition - i.e. whether she was an old one, no longer "at her best".

As I am waiting for a new hive to arrive, only had a small "offspring" box with room for 5 comb frames (normal box has 12 frames). Put in one frame from last year packed full of honey and four empty ones but also from last year and partly built - one can reuse combs after harvesting the honey, the bees needing only to repair the damage.

While he did all the work, I filmed the event, the video is on Flickr.

The video shows Mr B "knocking" the swarm from his swarm collection box in to my much smaller box. A bit difficult due to the size difference and I was of no help, insisting that I video the event instead of lending a hand! Despite my hinderance, he thinks the queen mad it as the swarm stayed quiet afterwards and quickly crawled down in to the box - perhaps it helped that it had turned really cold on the day, only getting to +6°C, the event took place at 19:00 and so the bees were not inclined to fly and wanted to go to bed.

Thanks Mr B!