At the end of last month I attended the titled conference in Oregon. This link is information regarding it. The talks seemed to be mostly for larger operations than mine, but I learned a lot by talking with other backyard beekeepers. It seems that many of us have made the same mistakes along the way.
One of my personal high points was meeting and talking with Tom Seeley. I asked him about the technique for marking the thousands of bees in his artificial swarms. Here is the picture if you don't remember. He would cool a few bees in a baggie in the refrigerator, then place them on blue ice and glue on the tag, one-by-one. What a job!
For one of the workshops, Prof. Seeley had made an artificial swarm. I was able to see the scout bees doing their waggle-dance. The next day, the scouts had decided on a site, had stopped dancing and were making a piping sound that lets the swarm know that it's time to get ready to go. This is the only recording of the piping I could find. The piping occurs at about 5:25, maybe other places, too. The bees started making their buzz runs indicating they were about to take off. I waited to watch, but my ride was waiting and I had to leave. The swarm probably took off soon after I left. This link is to a facebook page for the conference that has a picture of Tom Seeley, Kat Nesbit (conference organizer) and one of the speakers in front of the swarm taking off.
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