James Fischer asks: “7) What's the furthest anyone's seen a swarm settle on a branch from the parent hive? A hundred yards?” Funny you should ask. Last summer, on the 4th of July actually, I had a swarm issue forth from a hive in my back yard. At first it settled high up in an Alder tree close by. Not able to reach them, I kept a close eye on the swarm in hopes that they would reposition themselves more to my advantage. I even set up an empty hive down in the woods about a hundred yards away. They stayed up there in that tree for two or three hours. At one point after, verifying they were still there, I went down to look at my trap just to see if I could make some improvements. When I came back not more than ten minutes later my swarm was gone. I went to look at my trap again to see if I had gotten lucky. Nothing. About a half hour latter, after I had written my bees off, I got a call. It was from a guy who was in charge of setting up the fireworks display down at the waterfront about a quarter mile away. Seems a swarm of bees had settled in a pine tree right in the middle of where a couple hundred people were just starting to gather for the festivities. He had gotten my name and number from I don’t know where and was wondering if I would be kind enough to get those bees out of there. I jumped in my truck with a cardboard box, a veil and some pruning loppers and went on down there. The sheriff's deputy let me through the cordon, and with a whole bunch of folks looking on, I commenced to capture that basketball sized swarm ehich was on an outer branch at about eye level. Everyone was quite impressed, and I had the distinct feeling of being a genuine hero. The guy who had called me thanked me profusely and asked if they owed me anything. I said no that I was happy to do it as a public service and sheepishly but very gratefully I drove back home with what were almost certainly my own wayward bees. Somehow I didn’t think it necessary to mention this at the time though. So I learned that day that swarms can settle more than a hundred yards away. Just thought you might find that story amusing. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * ****************************************************