I caught my first swarm

My first catch! It wasn't a big swarm. In fact it may not have made it on it's own but I put it in the hive that I tried to create a split. The split wasn't going very well and that was my only option for the swarm so I figured I had nothing to lose by trying.

I kept seeing little bunches of bees after I would cut the branch and move them to the hive but finally I noticed that some of them were sticking their butt in the air and fanning giving the "the queen is here" signal. I closed the hive up for the night and we'll see what happens.

doing the splits part deux

Today I looked in on my bees. I first looked in on the new hive I am trying to start a new colony in. It didn't look good. Lots of honey and many bees but no brood and the new frames with new foundation hadn't been drawn out. I removed one frame of new foundation and left the hive open for the time being. I next went to my original hive. Good news here. Lots of honey in the top super, lots of honey in the middle super along with some brood. I found a frame that had eggs, yea! I carried it over to the second hive and replaced the one frame I removed with this one. Hopefully they will raise a queen from some of this brood. Back to the original hive. I looked at the other frames and found my queen, double yea! I caught her and marked her. The one thing I'm slightly concerned about is that I'm not seeing the typical bullseye pattern in the brood cells. Other than that the hive seems healthy.