Normally, this would be a happy post – catching my first swarm of the year and really getting into the beekeeping “spirit”! But, it has a bitter taste, thanks to HiveTracks (a tool I definitely no longer recommend.)
As happens most of the time, the call came at a very inopportune time. It was a couple of hours before dark and I was on my way to change a flat tire on my Pop’s car. Not only that, but I had my daughter with me. Fortunately, the tire change went quickly and I was able to bribe my eight year old with a dinner out (she had been in my truck for a good bit, so I felt obligated to offer a carrot!)
On the slightly negative side, the swarm was at one of my apiaries. I do not mind swarms, as long as I know when they have happened and I have already taken advantage of the hive’s build up through Nuc increase (more than one!) I had only taken one Nuc from this hive, unfortunately. On the plus side, this swarm was a few feet off the ground, in friendly territory, from a 5-star hive (presumably with one of my better queen lines) and a great opportunity to show an 8 year old a bit of the magic in beekeeping!
The catch went fairly uneventfully, although I am used to all of the bees going into the catch hive body after I drop the main mass into it. This time, there were a lot of bees hanging onto the side of the catch box when I left. Normally, I might have gotten the box this evening, but I decided to check on it tomorrow.
Interestingly, I had just been thinking about making a post about a hive that I helped a lady with this past weekend with a couple of capped swarm cells, mainly to give folks a heads up about getting into their hives. It turns out, one of my own hives was going to teach me the lesson myself. Although I should spend a whole post on this, suffice it to say that this was 100% due to some crazy update that HiveTracks made to their tool. They seem to have hired some UI guys that might have a hive or two to make some major changes to their app. It completely butchered the To Do list, which I find to be one of the most useful parts of the app. When I heard about the swarm, I immediately remembered looking at a hive in that yard on Mar 13 and noting (in HiveTracks) that I needed to take one or two Nucs from it within a week. But, that To Do was lost in the new HiveTracks. Needless to say, I am moving everything off of HiveTracks, but more on that later. I do not recommend that tool anymore.
