Bees

Last spring, one of my colonies swarmed. We saw the cluster of bees on a lower branch and acted fast. 

For the best chance of collecting the most bees, with the queen included, we had to get creative. The large cluster of bees were hanging out on a branch of this pine tree. I held the branch as Chris took a saw to cut the branch off the tree. This helped to keep the cluster intact. I shook the bees off the branch into the nuc and Chris quickly placed the lid on top. 

Now we wait. Unless we saw the queen in the nuc, it's hard to tell if we got the queen. We knew we had the queen when the rest of the bees eventually started entering the nuc.

All hands were on deck to capture the swarm, so the video only captured the later part of the adventure. The small cluster on this branch is only about 30% of the size of the original cluster we shook into the nuc. 

There's still a lot of bees!