[danccooke]

Hi,

I am looking for a swarm for my first hive.  having been reading for well over a decade I am finally in a position to actually have a hive (I am sure once I start it won't be the only one)
Sadly a swarm flew past the house the other day I was hoping they were going to ball up on a nearby tree but that would have just been too fortuitous.

I am in West Wales

[Olly398]

Can't help as I'm nowhere near you.
You might be lucky to get a swarm at this time of year.
Good luck!

[P6te]

Hi,
A couple of pointers for you, remember the saying, a swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in July is not worth a fly ... at this time of year there is very little chance of the bees becoming established and returning a surplus, if however you are just looking to get a hive established for next year then it's fine.
Regarding your sighting of a swarm and hoping it would settle, in my experience when a swarm leaves the hive they settle in very close proximity to the hive from which they came and then scout bees leave the cluster to locate a new home.  When a suitable home is located they return to the cluster and the swarm takes to the air and head for the new home.  In all probability this is what they were doing when you saw them and the chance of them clustering near you was remote.
The best chance you have to get a stray swarm is to leave your hive setup ready for bees as a 'bait hive' and you may fall lucky and find it populated one day .... but it is getting later in the season.
Hope this helps
Pete

[danccooke]

I am looking to establish, not worried about harvesting this year.
Like you by the time they were flying as a swarm I had assumed the same as you that they had already found a home and were heading there.

The hive is set up outside ready to go.   who knows maybe i'll get lucky. 

I know i am late this year also but you never know some things here in wales seem to be a good month behind what it would have been on the south coast where i was before. 

At worst i'll order/arrange for one next year

[Part time dabbler]

Put the word out that you are looking for a swarm, speak to local beekeepers and thelocal association.

[cloddopper]

Spray the brood comb with a diluted local ly produced honey & put a solid seperater in the box to make it to only six or seven frames of treated comb .

Any remaining small casts that may emerge  may take up residence in the treated frames of the brood box . Make up a couple of gallons of simple 1:1 sugar & water syrup for if you go get visitors they will need feeding well right up to the middle of October if the weather stays above 50 oC .


 If all this happens you will also need to add more drawn brood frames one at a time eithe side of the brood nest on the outer edges  so the bees can make a massive store of pollen & honey but don't be in a great hurry to do it lest you chill the nest .
 You may even be lucky & find you need to add a single fully drawn super minus a queen seperator directly on a fully filed brood box .

Good luck , don't be disheartened if it does not work oiut .
 

Purchase some bee attractant from the likes of Thornes .
Make up three or four six brood frame sized  neuc boxes for next year & come the beginning of April bait each of the neuc boxes as well as the hive brood box with the attractant .
Also be prepared to take anti varroa precautions from day one  in each  bee home if you get a swarm take up residency & again feed them  from day one to ensure you give nature a big helping hand

[danccooke]

Thank you so much for that.  Really useful info.
With everything else going on, on the the land I'm happy to see if nature wants to come play too rather than spend out.  If nothing comes to play next year then I'll look at buying a swarm

[cloddopper]

My first swarm was alte inth season about the size of both fists in the last days of July at about 18.30 inthe evening .
 
I put on a cowboy hat , draped a net curtaion over it & tucked the spare material into my zip up over alls .Put the legs into a pair of wellies 7 slipped on a pair of marigolds  that I got my lass to tape to the arm cuffs.

 I laid on the floor by the 18 inch tall cottoneaster that they had take up residence in & was surprised that they didn't all fly up at me .
 I then found a large card board box that was big enough to cover the cottoneaster & put a 1.5 inch hole in one corner then  snipped the base of the cotton easter off  put it inthe box & taped the lid on .
As the site was well inside my garden I out a lump of wood on top of it and went to see a guy who I knew kept bees to see if I could borrow a brood box .


 He lent me a national with fully drawn combs ,  a floor , crown board & lid plus a hive block .
 Then told me that in the morning once I was protected again , I should  undo the cardboard box and shake the bees into the set up brood box ,p utting on the crown board & feeding the bees with half a gallon of 1:1 syrup using a large clean empty 5 litre emulsion paint can that he suggested I made a single darning needle sized hole in the base , sitting it over the hole of the crown board once I'd filled it & securely pushed the lid down on & put the hive block in to reduce the entrance against robber bees etc.

 They had taken it all down by day three . The  queen had laid no end of eggs by day five .
 The hive got fed a couple more 5 litre cans of syrup .
I had to add the unseparated extra super as they grew in numbers well , right up untill the late Ivyflowers had stopped producing pollen & nectar .
 

 At the autumn auction of the local keepers association I picked up  several tatty but serviceable complete hives .
At the spring National show in Stoneleigh I purchased several hundred  self spacing national brood & super flat packed complete frames and unwired sheets of foundation along with  several packs of pins & from eBay a panel pin inserter to get the pins started as I built up & inserted the frames .
 I wasn't idle during the next winter either . For my birthday my lass gave me an all singing all danging rise & fall tilting industrial saw bench that had a 500 mm finer TCT blade & a massive heavy duty high speed bosch router plus half a dozen useful Trend cutters .

So I started making my own simplified  national hives and  produced several thousand unwired frames for brood boxes  , neuc's & supers .  Storing them in old but sealable dead fridges & freezers to keep the dreaded wax moths off them.
 In the end I ran about 110 hives through the spring &  summer ,  condensing them & all my neuc's down to 50 hives for overwintering out  in my six long term apiaries that were several miles away from my home  .