The "No Mow May" campaign was a success. I have collected a new hive of bees this past weekend at the store, which is one hundred percent more bees than I collected all of last year. 

Right now they are still living in the swarm trap that I put up and some night this week I will have to transport them to my house where their permanent hive is located. Transporting bees can be a little tricky, no pun intended. 

The bees must be moved at night, so that almost all of the colony will be back in the hive and so that the next morning their internal GPS will reset to their current location. To move the bees, I will plug up the entrance hole to the bee trap so that none of them will escape and cause trouble in my car during the move. 

Once I get them home, I will set the swarm trap next to their new full beehive and remove the plug on the swarm trap. Since it is still the middle of the night, a few bees may come out to see what is going on, but most will stay inside to make sure the queen is safe and secure. 

In the morning when the bees start coming out to forage for the day, their GPS will be set to their current location, just like the locator on your cell phone. 

When the bees leave the hive in the morning they will instinctively be able to find their way back to exactly where their hive is. This is how bees can be moved from orchard to orchard or crop to crop by tractor trailer to improve pollination in commercial crops. 

When the bees are released from their hives in an orchard they can find their way right back to their hive even when there are a hundred or so hives all in a row. It really is quite remarkable. 

Now that there are plenty of flowers blooming for the summer, the bees will have an ample bounty of pollen and nectar to collect for their hive. 

Once my hive starts thriving this summer, I will keep an eye out to see if they are producing another queen cell. Normally if they produce a queen cell, it means that the colony is growing fast enough to split the hive. 

This is how I was able to collect a swarm so early this year. With the added wildflowers aloud to grow in the lawns in May, bee colonies could get a jump on the season and start thriving earlier with the plentiful amount of flowers. 

Also there are plenty of videos on youtube that can show you how to produce your own queen cells to increase your chances of splitting your one colony into two. Just remember, colonies need to be sizeable enough to survive the winters around here, so don't divide your hives too late in the season or you might run the risk of both your hives failing over the winter. 

I'm hoping to catch another swarm or two so that I can get at least three good hives going before the winter. The months of June, July and August are the most common months for attracting swarms, but I have caught a swarm as late as mid-September a number of years ago. Unfortunately, because that swarm got such a late start, they were not a large enough colony to survive the winter even with supplemental feeding. 

If you have had any success catching a bee swarm this spring, let me know or if you want some more information on how to catch a bee swarm, stop by and see me at the store.