Friday-Saturday overnight we picked up 2cm of rain and Sat was very warm and VERY muggy.  But, it dried out enough that I could mow the lawn by mid-afternoon.  As I walked out to the barn I saw a huge cloud of bees in the bee yard.  “Oh darn” I thought, “I JUST missed a swarm.”  Since the prior weekend I had gone out to the yard to set out my swarm traps and found a swarm 12 meters up in a pine tree (“Missed it by THAT much”), I was not thrilled to find that I had, apparently, missed another one from my yard.  As an aside, I was really surprised to see that first swarm, since my surviving hives had come out of the winter with really small clusters, and I had already used them for splits into nucs.  Just goes to show what the bees can do with some good weather, pollen and flow.

Anyway, I went over to check out the swarm to see if I could determine from which hive it came.  As I watched, I realized the swarm was not LEAVING my yard, rather, it was ENTERING my yard and was, in fact, trying to get into one of my deadouts.  I lost several hives last winter, when the bees, for reasons known only to the bees, chimmneyed up three deeps and starved, leaving LOTS of honey in the hives.  These hives I just sealed up with duck tape (after cleaning out the dead bees) to save the honey until I could repopulate with nucs from splits.  I use metal hive entrances, the kind with holes on one side and a slider on the other to adjust the entrance as needed, and I leave them on all year long.  So, it was easy to seal with duck tape.  Well, the tape had peeled a little with the rain, fog, etc., exposing one of the holes – which is large enough for a single bee to enter or leave.  Earlier in the week I had seen bees trying to get into the hive and assumed they were robbers (also found bees at the swarm traps (polystyrene 5-frame nucs) and thought the same.  Duh.  They were scouts.  This swarm was really big and the hive was literally covered top to bottom in bees with thousands more in the air, all trying to get into a hive with an entrance the size of a single bee.  So, I stepped into the middle of the swarm, peeled off the duck tape, opened the slider and then stepped back.  Immediately, the bees began marching into the hive.  I went and got my digital camera, but BOTH rechargeable batteries were dead (I need to use that thing more often).  Double darn.  Later, I remembered that my Blackberry has a decent camera and even shoots video, but it was too late.  Within 10 minutes the whole swarm had moved in, and I went on to mow my lawn.

Well, not a very educational post, but I figured I would put it up here, because you folks would understand what I mean when I say that that was one of the coolest things I have experienced in a long time (family and friends just kind of stare or nod in a sympathetic way, when I talk about bee experiences).  Standing in a swarm of thousands of bees with no protection and being totally ignored, while watching an entire colony just move into one of my deadouts, was really a special experience.  Beekeeping has so many bummer moments, like when I watched that swarm fly off the prior week, but then there are these moments that make it all worthwhile.  As I mowed and looked over at the new colony, I couldn’t stop grinning.

Lessons I learned: 1) Study the bees at the swarm traps and empty hives and learn the difference between robbing and scouting; 2) May be better to leave deadouts open, so other swarms can find them - robbing is pretty minimal until the flow ends; 3) Start swarm control as soon as the flow starts.

I put a top feeder on the new colony, which they haven't touched, and would like to add a pollen patty, but I don’t want to open the hive and disturb them for a few days, until I am sure they have settled in.  Weather is supposed to be nice for a few days, so they will probably start bringing their own in today.  Any recommendations on anything else I should do?

Thanks for reading.

Bill
Claremont, NH
+43.35687 +43° 21’ 25”
-72.3835   -72° 23’ 01”
CWOP: D5065
Weather Underground: KNHCLARE3
HonetBeeNet: NH001

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