Massive Honey Bee Swarm Caught in My Truck Bed!

[00:00:01]Well, cuz we are about ready to catch those bees.

[00:00:08]Getting my gear on right now.

[00:00:12]Never done a live one before, so this should be interesting.

[00:00:16]Y'all can laugh at me if this goes south.

[00:00:24]All right.

[00:00:26]But, there's our swarm.

[00:00:30]And it's it's about 7:30, almost 8:00 in the evening here in the North Georgia mountains.

[00:00:39]Why don't I put gloves on?

[00:00:41]Um even though I'm in the honey business, I hate sticky hands.

[00:00:46]That's about the bottom line.

[00:00:48]Plus, the bees are less apt to sting if they don't feel skin.

[00:00:53]Where they try to get you is on the elastic around your finger and all that good stuff, so.

[00:00:58]But, the nice thing about a swarm is they're relatively gentle.

[00:01:05]So, I'm going to put my stuff together here and hopefully I've got the tailgate down, as you see.

[00:01:12]And we're just going to do a little shaky shake and get them in this box.

[00:01:19]Again, we're going live, so I hope all goes well.

[00:01:26]All right.

[00:01:29]So, I do have one drawn frame of comb here.

[00:01:34]Typically, I like to do brood in the box.

[00:01:42]However, I was literally on the way home to start making some cool stuff for Father's Day, for tomorrow's farmers market, and I ran into this. I was like, "Let me just swing by the yard and see what we got going on."

[00:02:02]All right.

[00:02:05]That looks pretty much underneath of them.

[00:02:08]So, I have a couple foundations that are clean.

[00:02:15]Oh, you know what? I also have some other foundation. Hopefully, I don't knock the camera off.

[00:02:25]Aha.

[00:02:29]Now, I don't necessarily recommend doing this, but it should keep them busy for a little while.

[00:02:36]Um Duh, something got on that one.

[00:02:41]These are honey frames.

[00:02:43]Clearly.

[00:02:46]So, these were extracted deeps.

[00:02:51]Which you don't usually get a whole lot per year, but I got them this year.

[00:02:57]So, when the bees hit that, that'll give them something to do.

[00:03:04]That didn't go as planned.

[00:03:07]>> [snorts] >> All right.

[00:03:09]So, let's see what we got here.

[00:03:13]We'll put our lid on as soon as I get them in.

[00:03:20]Lots of prep, I know.

[00:03:23]All right. That's a pretty good size swarm.

[00:03:26]That's why I'm not doing it in a nuc box.

[00:03:30]We're going to center this bad boy, and I'm going to try to contain as many of the bees as I can in here.

[00:03:43]Um I'm going to put that one in there. Just leave a little bit of room.

[00:03:49]Okay.

[00:03:50]So, it goes something like this.

[00:04:12]All right.

[00:04:14]Now, the challenge is to find the queen.

[00:04:22]They're not happy campers, I'll tell you that much right now.

[00:04:28]I've uh definitely received a few stings on that initial drop.

[00:04:34]Here on my arm, but you can see they're all over.

[00:04:39]All right, so now the game is where is the queen?

[00:04:48]Typically, she's one of the first to drop.

[00:04:59]Now, when I say I got stung, keep in mind it was not like an aggressive sting or anything.

[00:05:06]They're here all on my hand, just fanning away.

[00:05:10]Right now, they are trying to find the queen and where she's at. And you can This is like the coolest thing. If you've never been part of catching a swarm, it is it is really kind of the coolest thing to see the wildness of nature.

[00:05:27]Um They know exactly what they're doing.

[00:05:31]They know exactly where they're uh you know, as far as The reason they swarm is cuz because they want to grow another colony.

[00:05:40]So, they get so large in their colony, they've got plenty of honey stores, they've got plenty of baby or what's called brood, and it's their time to move on. And there's usually what's called queen swarm cells. So, they're queen cells. They're a little bit bigger for those of you who have not been into beekeeping.

[00:06:00]Um and that's where the new queens will emerge. So, in somewhere in here, there is a mated queen that just came out of one of my colonies.

[00:06:10]My bee yard is at the front of the truck. So, that's how I know that these are absolutely my bees.

[00:06:16]All right.

[00:06:19]I do not see any clumping or all the all the bees um making a big ball. Typically, that's indicative of the queen.

[00:06:38]So, I don't see her.

[00:06:41]But, they're absolutely marching their happy little rear ends right into the colony.

[00:06:50]So, I'm not going to bore you guys with the whole thing.

[00:06:55]It is rather fascinating.

[00:06:57]So, I was just in another bee yard and I've got honey all over me. So, I I've got a bunch of friends right now, which is always fun.

[00:07:06]Um Hm.

[00:07:11]I think we got her.

[00:07:13]So, I'll know, like I said, in about 15, 20 minutes, most all the bees will be moved in. I can turn the lid so that's actually on, and then I will actually need to take these bees to one of my other bee yards.

[00:07:26]I'll probably take it over to the Walka Mountain bee yard.

[00:07:31]But, I just figured you might want to see exactly what happens when a beekeeper catches a swarm. Thanks for watching. Feel free to comment below if you've ever caught a swarm or if you've been part of catching a swarm.

[00:07:42]Um I'm sure I messed up some things.

[00:07:46]Like putting a tarp down, flipping my golden blonde hair back. Um all those good things. Uh so anyways, be feel free to comment below and we'll take you on the next journey later.

[00:08:15]Now let's shut the