Blog - Mesmer Bees

Second swarm Cady St #2 Swarmed from the same feral colony.

Izzo Golf Swarm in Macedon. It was huge. Biggest queen I have ever seen!

Bushnell’s Basin swarm from a fellow beekeeper. This one unfortunately absconded.

My wife and I moving a hive to a new yard in Fishers

5/31/21 No pics. I checked on my home resource hive, both sides had eggs and I saw the queens. I marked the left side queen which they made themselves. Hives 5 and 7 were queenless and had no eggs. The new bought queen didn’t take! I decided to do some combining. I combined the hive 7 split with 5 and the Stanridge swarm with 7. I put newspaper in between the added box and the original. It takes a day or so for them to chew through the paper. This way they get used to the new queen and don’t kill her. Fingers crossed!

6/7 -6/8 I went through my home yard and the farm yard. I pulled 4 frames from hive 1 and 5 from hive 7. Some were loaded with nectar, but not capped, others the wax was barely drawn out. The farm yard wasn’t ready yet. All of the hives are either splits with new queens or swarms. I shouldn’t really expect much from them this year. I did look at the brood in hive 8 and there were tons of capped brood. If the other hives are similar, I should get a lot of honey.

I used my new hive butler uncapping tank. It worked great! I probably got about 20 to 25 pounds on my first extraction. Not bad for being so early!

6/9 I went to Barben Farms and leveled 4 hives. I also looked at a hive with not too many bees flying in and out, Hive 6. This is the one that I requeened. I looked in and and saw a lot off eggs, but no brood. I checked and checked and couldn’t see the queen, until I I saw an unmarked queen. The hive killed her and made their own.

I also went to Fishers to spray the swarm trap and check on the Izzo golf hive. They started building comb on the honey supers and have tons and tons of brood. They are going to explode! I did see the queen too.

6/10 This was my highest swarm to date. It was way easier than I thought it was going to be. I just taped an a home depot bucket onto an extension pole and shook the branch. I pretty much got the whole thing on the first try. I met a bunch of nice people too! I’ll try to bet the video up.

Harvard-Vasser swarm before I shook them

Harvard-Vasser swarm all tucked in at my Fishers yard. I gave them a fram of empty come and a frame of brood from the Izzo Golf swarm. I did see the queen!

6/12/21 Got a big swarm at Nashville’s in Henrietta

This was huge! I was able to see the queen when I put it in the hive. The one is called the Nashville swarm

6/17/21 Huge swarm on Charissa Run. I got the bucket again and banged the branch which was about 15 ft up. I did it several times, then left it and came back around sunset. I think I got them all.

Huge one. I saw the queen on the mess of bees on the lid. I gave it a frame of brood and fed sugar water.

Fishers yard as of 6/18/21. I checked then Nashville’s swarm and she is laying. They are drawing comb like crazy. I gave them sugar water today too

Big swarm on Archer Rd in Chili. I have a video on Youtube on Mesmer Bees. Caught 6/25/21

I did my first cutout. I was shocked how massive it was. I cut most of the brood comb out and rubberbanded them inside of empty frames. I put this one in my home yard. I filled 3 buckets with the rest of the comb. I’ll let my bees rob it out, then melt it. I was able to find the queen! I have a very short video on Youtube. 6/27/21

Yes I drove home like this. I wore the suit for the ride.

7/1/21 I was gifted a swarm out of a swarm trap from a friendly Bushnel’s basin Beekeeper. It had drawn comb on all 5 frames with 2 1/2 frames filled with nectar and the rest with brood. I put it in a 7 frame nuc until I finish painting my new equipment. I drove up to Pulaski to buy from an Amish guy today. I also extracted about 120 pounds from the Barben Farms yard. Hives 1,2,3,and 5 gave a super each. The other hives were behind. I gave some more honey supers to all three yards today. I checked the Izzo gold swarm. They swarmed. They had about 9 swarm cells. I’ll just let nature take its course.

7/31 I have been doing a lot of bee stuff over the last month. I harvested more honey, treated for mites, moved hives to pallets, inspected the brood after treatment, etc… I do have a few queenless colonies, I believe. I got another swarm today from the Browncroft area. I never realized how nice it is over there! Yesterday, the cluster was on a tree limb that fell on a garage. I scooped it up with my Home Depot bucket and it seemed to go well. At the end of the night, all the bees were in the box. Then, sometime today, they all left and clustered on a branch in the front yard. I shook it in the box, then cut the branch. It is a small swarm, but if I can find the queen, I think I will combine it with a queenless hive. I have been running around trying to get my honey into some stores and have some successes! It reminds me of my pharmaceutical drug rep days… kind of.

8/1/21 I ended up combing the swarm with a queenless colony . I hope it takes!

10/24/21 I’m not a very good blogger. I have been busy with the bees though. I finished the honey production and am getting them ready for the winter. I fed all the hives and treated for mites. I’m going to insulate the hive tops this year and put mouse guards in each hive.

6/13/22 I have done a lot since October. I have added some hives. I am up do 36 now. I have been catching swarms and splitting the hives. I just extracted from the Mendon yard yesterday. I mostly give updates on Instagram, Facebook and some YouTube now.

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