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" Did they cluster as in a swarm - simply fly away into the sunset?  I'm still searching - any takers ?

I found a few small autumn swarms around the bee yards hanging on nearby trees after varroa arrived.  I put them into nuc boxes and treated them, then added a couple of frames of brood and they survived in our NZ winter climate with a lot of feeding.  If you don't add new bees, the nuc died.  I believe these swarms were just old bees.

I haven't seen anything like this for 10 years as now any weak hive is robbed fairily quickly perhaps due to high bee hive numbers.   We sometimes have a long protracted robbing season where wasps (yellow jackets) can be just as bad as bees.  Some years are "plague years".  Wasp numbers build up during the summer from over-winter nest when winters are mild and not too wet.  Once all the flowering species have finished, the wasps direct their attention to bee hives.  During this period bees stop flying as anything going out past the entrance becomes food for wasps. They will gang up on a weak hive until they wear down the bees - they take everything bar the combs and pollen.  Its a pity that varroa doesn't affect them.

Frank Lindsay
New Zealand

 
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