Steph - when I boxed the swarm, I noticed the bees were standing on the
entrance to the cardboard box and fanning the stragglers in too.
Sounds like they are doing well.
Regards,
Liz.
On Tue, May 3, 2022, 10:40 Stefanie Taeumer <stefanietaeumer@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Thank you Paul, that is reassuring!
The past few times when I hived a swarm I did it closer to dusk and didn't
watch the entrance closely, too excited about watching the walk-in to have
a close look at the entrance. This time I looked more closely at the
entrance and it was fascinating to see how immediately some of the bees
started fanning in the entrance, to guide the others in.
Stefanie
On Tue, May 3, 2022 at 10:17 AM Oxnatbees <oxnatbees@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Stefanie
definitely do not feed them (yet)
They are no longer exposed to the weather, and today the weather in your
location is not so bad that it would prevent them from flying if they
really need food - experienced foragers can fly in drizzle. Tomorrow looks
a bit better. They have evolved to swarm in this environment - they will
conserve energy until scouts report an opportunity to feed.
The time to get worried is if they act tired and *unable* to fly at the
entrance in another couple of days. If you have sustained heavy rain / low
temperatures for a few days now, or a drought, that would give them
problems as it would mean there is little nectar to collect. (High winds
also prevent flying.) For your location, tomorrow looks marginal and
Thursday looks like a great foraging day, so we can predict that they will
be super-active on Thursday.
Paul
On Tue, 3 May 2022 at 09:29, Stefanie Taeumer <stefanietaeumer@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi everyone,
I normally don't feed the swarms I catch/am given but I was wondering if
I should feed the swarm I picked up from Liz on Sunday. Liz caught the
swarm on Saturday, I hived them Sunday at around 3pm. I know that the bees
in a swarm bring honey for about 3 days which would have lasted until about
yesterday or today. They seemed to have settled in nicely when I checked on
them yesterday but I am slightly concerned about the drizzly and fairly
cold weather today.
Stefanie
