I have been catching bee swarms from the very beginning of my beekeeping activity.
I used to catch them only because I was expanding the apiary. After all, buying bee families is a rather expensive affair. Now it is, rather, just a hobby, besides quite profitable.
I mentioned earlier in my articles that an average bee family costs $ 100 (or, to be more precise, I wrote about this earlier). Of course, depending on the region, this price can be either slightly lower or higher.
A strong bee swarm is essentially the same family. That is, I caught a swarm - I found 100 bucks!
Of course, this does not mean that now you should rush to catch bee swarms, and not because it is a complex matter, there are essentially no difficulties there. Profitable to do this can only be a beekeeper practice.
Catching stray swarms is an absolutely permitted activity, this is even prescribed in the law on beekeeping.
Catching a swarm is pretty simple. To do this, it is enough to make a reel, in fact it is a normal box of fiberboard or plywood, in which 8 frames are placed. To the front wall of this box, near the entrance, a small piece of the capitalized old canvas is nailed with a stapler. The swarms for several kilometers smell the propolis.
Roovka is usually placed on trees, somewhere on the edge of the forest.
The most active period for catching a swarm is May and June. After the swarm is caught, late in the evening or early in the morning, close the notch and remove it from the tree.
The cattle brewer is brought to the place where this swarm will subsequently be placed as an ordinary family.
Most importantly to from the place where the swarm was caught, to the place of its permanent deployment it was no closer than 5 kmotherwise, bees may fly.
In the morning they open the door, and the bees make a familiarization flyby, already in a new place. After the flyby, as a rule, on the second day, the bees are transplanted into the hive.
The advantage of the swarm over an ordinary family is that before the appearance of a young bee (this is 21 days) and the building of a nest for itself, the swarm breaks all the records for the speed of construction. Sometimes you are simply amazed, just yesterday they put 8 frames of wax on them, and after 3 days it’s completely built up frames of land, in which the first brood and honey began to appear.
Of course, such swarm energy will not last forever, so the beekeeper must have time to use it. In addition, a strong swarm caught in late May or early June can bring from 15 to 30 kg of honey, and this is an additional income. (I also wrote about how much honey an average bee can bring.
On a note! Swarm bees and uterus carry the swarm gene. Therefore, after some time, as a rule, at the end of the season, the uterus in such a family should be replaced with a new one, genetically resistant to swarming.Unless of course your goal next year is to remove their swarms from branches, and not strangers from others.
Fishing for swarms can be compared to such fascinating hobbies as fishing, hunting or picking mushrooms. As well as fishermen know places that are more or less catchy, beekeepers engaged in swarm fishing, over the years, identify areas where there is a chance that the swarm will fall into the rearing higher. And also the place where to place the relova is completely meaningless.
In conclusion, I would like to say thatRoaming is an activity that is aimed at saving bee families all over the world.. After all, out of 10 swarms of swarms, a suitable place for further development is, at best, two of them. The remaining eight, in fact, are doomed to death.
This is a rare occupation that is not only useful for maintaining the balance of pollinator insects in nature, but also brings undoubted financial benefit to anyone who is fond of it.
