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

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