Today I lost my first swarm.  I had successfully overwintered one hive
and it was doing great until today.  While we were at church the hive
swarmed and landed on a neighbors tree.  While we were gone, my
neighbor had tried to get our attention by coming over and blowing
their car horn.  They were afraid to get out of the car.  We weren't
home so they weren't successful.
 
By the time we got home, they were gone!  They could have only been on
the tree for about 1-1.5 hours max.  Do bees alight on a tree and then
go to their new home that quickly?  I was under the impression that
they stayed at their intermediate location much longer than that.
 
I'm hoping they haven't taken up residence in another neighbor's house.
 That would make things even worse than they are now.  They hive they
were in is at about half strength and many of them are drones.  I found
some queen cells and they are still uncapped so I'm hoping we'll have a
new queen soon.  I guess you can't catch them all.
 
Ted Wout
Red Oak, TX  2nd year beekeeper, 8 hives