It's been a while.  Won't bore everyone with the story of the 6-point buck that got tangled up in my electric fence just before Christmas and, between direct kicks to hives and and pulling in the fence as he wrapped it around his antlers and toppling others, took out most of my hives.  Wait, I just did.

On another post someone mentioned that the volume of a single, square deep was the preferred size of cavities for swarms.  Thought it worth mentioning that yesterday I found that a swarm had moved into an empty stack of boxes in my bee yard.  It consisted of three deeps and two supers, some of which only had a few frames in them (just stacked there on a base on some concrete blocks and an empty queen castle with a lid to keep them at hand and dry for when needed).  At first, I thought they were just robbing, but after several days, they looked to be more organized and not manic, like robbers can be (lot of rain these past few days, so couldn't tell if they were bringing in pollen).  Yesterday, I opened up the stack and, as soon as I did, I could see they were calm and purposeful, bringing in nectar.  They were spread out across all five boxes, since a couple only had frames on one side, so I consolidated them into two deeps and a super, gave them a proper bottom board, and let them be.  They are a good-sized colony, definitely not from my yard, since my colonies are all being rebuilt after the deer disaster (hmmm, managed to tie those two stories together).

Three or four years ago I was lucky enough to actually watch a swarm fly in over the trees and move into a three-deep dead out.  It was about the same time of year.  I've put out single deep and five-frame nucs as swarm traps, but never captured a swarm.  So, while on paper they may prefer a space with a single-deep volume, they certainly are not put off by much larger volumes,  especially with drawn comb in them, at least in my limited experience.  

Anyway, it was nice to get a 'free' colony after all those losses.

Bill
Claremont, NH
+43° 21'  -72° 23’
+43.35     -72.38

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