Man plans... Queen Bee's Laugh -or- 28hrs later (In the Bee Yard)

I did everything right. Made a plan last year and stuck to it. Put a list together of all the equipment I wanted for expanding my apiary this year from NAHBE, and spent weeks getting the finish I wanted applied, the boxes assembled, frames made, foundation rerolled super heavy, and I fabbed up a completely custom swarm catcher that is a functional story and a half extra wide Nuc box from which the newly occupied frames would slot right into my now standardized 8-frame story and a half hive body system.

While all the rest of my new equipment assembly was going on I put out my super-duper new built swarm catcher up on a berm next to a tree that’s helped me catch probably half a dozen swarms. I even baited it with some lemongrass oil and old drawn comb. It got minimal action, but it did get some, and since I had an older swarm catcher sitting on the porch gathering dust, I decided to bait it too and hang it in one of my other known bee trees. It got a lot of attention. I figured ok… if these are my bees they know where it is, and they seem to like it… if I do have a swarm this should be dead easy. Boy was I dead wrong.

I had made early splits from my strongest colonies; one (with an awesome assist from Tony Olekas) I simulated a swarm by moving the old queen and five frames of the necessities into the foundation brood chamber of an experimental Langstroth/Flow 10-frame hive body and the other was made with a double screen board I made after listening to Bob Binnie’s talk at Anderson University.

I had given the split five frames of bees and drawn comb, 4 of them with the necessities and one full frame of eggs just in case the really nice lower third of the frame swarm cell they had already made and stocked with jelly wasn’t populated with an egg yet. Another of those 4 frames had half a dozen small queen cups also stocked with jelly. A perfect split. It should have slowed the roll on the original colonies need to swarm and provided the new one with a rock-solid foundation for growth. As a bonus it also allowed me to deploy myfrom scratch HDO 8-frame double screen board with securable entrance, and 5/8” spacer rim to allow space between it and the top bars of the original colonies upper brood box. Tim the “Toolman” Taylor would have been right there making the appropriate noises with me.

That particular split was made 12 days ago yesterday morning, the day I went and posted in the ACBA Facebook group pontificating about how warm the previous day and night had been, even going so far as to put up some pretty pictures from day time activity and night time infrared of this exact colony bearding and how in my opinion, it was just too cold and windy this day for the girls to be getting up to anything. I figured “they aren’t gonna swarm today…” though I did see enough activity from the original double screen split colony to warrant adding a honey super in between it and the split and added the task to my list of things to get done during the course of the day. I prepositioned the supers I wanted to add not to just that colony but a separate one that might just need the room to ease congestion and went about my other tasks. Made some decent progress too. And then around 3:05 pm something caused me to look over at my bee yard and sure as heck there are thousands of bees in the air and more coming from that colony that wasn’t supposed to swarm because I had split it already!!!

I grabbed my bee jacket and zipped up and went amongst them to see where they were gonna wind up.

They were not heading towards either of my baited swarm catchers.

They were however loitering around yet another known bee tree so again this should be an easy catch, I’ll just go get one of my traps, secure the swarm and move them into a new hive setup.

Except they didn’t settle…

OK fine, I’ll just meander along with them and see where they finally land.

A limb twenty feet up in a sixty-foot pecan tree was not my ideal place. But it is the one she chose to finally alight on.

I said a few bad words. Contemplated the aluminum extension ladder I have, maybe getting my truck just in case it won’t reach and thought… the wife is going to have a duck if I attempt this particular evolution within sight of the back porch, so I had to improvise.

I have a 100’ extension cord that I use in winter to run the water heater in my hen house. It was about the only thing I had that I could toss over the limb and hoist my old swarm catcher up under these girls and bump or coax them into the box. So that’s what I did. Not without unintentionally and unhelpfully wrapping the plug end around the branch and having it tether itself in place slicker than Indiana Jones could have done on purpose with a bull whip. I did get enough of a loop over the branch to attempt my experimental “hoist a trap” maneuver.

I took a while; patiently guided the trap up to the swarm after pulling a couple frames out so they could drop right in, pretty sure I bumped her majesty into the box right off but her subjects were reluctant to abandon the limb so it took a while and some repositioning and judicious line tugging before enough bees were getting busy with butts in the air emitting Nasonov pheromones for me to be sure she was actually in the box from 20’ below.

Not wanting to leave half the swarm on the limb or take a chance of her absconding I brought the trap down, slid the previously removed frames back inside and slapped the lid back on before hoisting the entire thing back up so that the reset of the bees could get a nose full of Her Majesty’s “come hither” and get themselves back together with herself herself. Took a bit. But it worked out and after that getting the swarm relocated from the trap into the hive setup I had planned to use for the split I made from this queen’s progeny was simple straight forward beekeeping. Of course, with the extra unplanned and unexpected colony addition taking up previously dedicated woodenware I now have to dig into next year’s bee boxes to house the split when it’s ready to come off the original hive stack.

Thankfully… I have something close enough to finished that I should be able to make that happen.

Someone accused me of making furniture once… so I decided to accept the remark and actually do something really nice. The bees will absolutely not care. I surely did enjoy the making though. Tulip Poplar, four applications of tung oil, Top side entry, 60° landing board (scuffed for traction to optimize safe landings with full pollen pouches), a permanently affixed adjustable entrance reducer with miniature antique brass pull for easy manipulation while wearing beekeeping gloves, and antique brass handles on all the other sides. Just need to finish up an inner cover and migratory lid and it will be ready to deploy. The bottom board which is ported on the backside for easy oxalic acid vaporizing, is all ready to go.

As of this moment 5:00 pm on the day after, no new swarms. The swarm from yesterday is still in their new 8-frame story and a half brood boxes with the addition of a crown board and a gallon of 1:1 syrup in 4 32oz Ball jars hidden away inside a medium box. Should give them a good start to expand on the 5 frames of drawn comb already present. If all these colonies actually thrive this season I might just run out of honey supers… what a problem to have. All the rest of my 8-frame story and a half colonies got honey supers today, shallow or medium based on how strong they were coming out of winter.

One colony has two mediums on as they are already filling the first one. They don’t have much more than a frame full yet so I am a little early by conventional wisdom, but this colony was founded by a queen I call “Swarmzilla” who is insanely prolific when it comes to building brood. She’s the one I relocated into my 10-frame hybrid Flow setup and at a minimum of three years old, just since she was caught, going strong enough to have come thru winter with 7 out of 8 top bars covered with bees in both brood boxes. The additional medium honey super is there to ease congestion for the remaining bees. Their new queen should be just about ready to go on her mating flight. In about 10 more days I’ll take a peek and do a brood check.

Given that yesterday gave ample and copious proof that Murphy is indeed our Shepherd, I restocked the swarm trap used in yesterday’s adventure with frames and super heavy waxed plastic foundation, baited again with lemongrass, and this time per something I saw from Kamon I tossed an old piece of medium plastic foundation on the bottom that came from a brood chamber and still had some lingering scent on it. It had been scraped but not completely cleaned off. It will be interesting to see how it does.

Should Murphy in their wisdom, decide to give me yet more swarms this season, I can maybe in a pinch after begging some equipment like a migratory lid and a bottom board handle two more, and not have to farm them out to another beekeeper interested in catching them. Provided they bring their own equipment.

One final note, regarding yesterday, when all was said and done, and I was getting ready to shuck my bee jacket I was confronted with the fact that at some point during all the hoisting and bee moving, the zipper had split and I had been left wide open from navel to nipples.

That's how it all happened in Anderson County South Carolina on a cold and windy weekend in March, 2026.

Murphy is indeed our Shepherd.

Post Script: I did get my extension cord unwrapped from that limb without having to resort to extreme measures...

Kelly Davis

Certified Beekeeper

ACBA Member