---------------Original Message---------------                                  
>   Will bees cluster even without a queen?                                     
                                                                                
Yes.  They cluster for the company of other bees.                               
                                                                                
>        Will the bees left behind cluster back on the branch                   
without a                                                                       
>queen?                                                                         
                                                                                
                                                                                
  Shawna Roberts                                                                
  Gypsy Bees                                                                    
  Hollister, CA                                                                 
                                                                                
Last year after 20 years beekeeping I encountered my first                      
queenless swarm. It was a ragged, flighty mass of bees covering                 
the corner of a house roof. It was certainly not a cluster. Just                
like the difference between the yolks of fried eggs in a pan when               
one has broken!  It took me a while to realise there was no queen               
but they refused to stay in their cardboard box after several                   
attempts to get them in over about an hour an a half.  I went home              
and caged a queen from a nucleus hive. I placed her, still in the               
cage, with a few bees from the swarm in the upside down box on an               
old bed sheetspread on the ground near the swarm.  In twenty                    
minutes all the bees had flown down into the box.  I wrapped them               
up and took them home.  I gave the queen back to the nucleus and                
united the swarm with another colony.                                           
                                                                                
NB A box with a swarm in it must always be carried upside down.                 
Bees always hang and try to climb upwards.  Collecting bees in a                
bag or pillow case seems to be making life unecessarily difficult.              
Follow the bees' insincts.  It's easier for them and us.                        
                                                                                
PS  Plastic containers, bins, boxes or bags are disastrous for                  
bees; no ventilation; slippery condensation from their respiration              
and static chages on the surface which makes them very unhappy.                 
                                                                                
Glyn Davies,  Ashburton, Devon. UK