Honey Bee Swarm Capture

The Swarm "hanging in there"... on a country fencepost

Swarm settled on a lighted fencepost February 28, 2019 This capture seemed, at first, to be fairly straightforward. I collected the swarm into a nuc. Soon, as many bees were escaping the nuc as were being captured. Starting a 2nd nuc, I needed to keep the 1st nuc cool, so I put it into the car with the AC running. I tilted the nuc on the back seat of the car to expose air vents in the bottom of the home-made nuc. I brushed the remaining bees from the fencepost into a 2nd nuc. Upon my return to the car, I found that the bungy-shut cover of the 1st nuc had slightly lifted off. That was just enough! The car was "full" of bees! I closed the nuc and opened all doors and windows. Before long, ALL the bees escaped the car! Surprisingly, the newly freed "car-bees" returned to the fencepost! They were captured a 2nd time. This time, all went well. Lesson learned! Video of scout bees "waggle dancing"!

 
As I collected (and stirred up) the bees, they readily re-congregated onto the fencepost

 
With the queen in the nuc, many bees voluntarily entered the nuc!
At home, the two nucs were placed "face to face" and opened under a large screen "tent".
After a while, all bees left the 2nd nuc and entered the one with the queen.


The captured bees were Carniolan.
At home, my Italian bees "visited" the new neighbor Carniolan bees still under the screen tent.

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