In reply to my suggestion that a swarm should be given Apistan at day one Bill Miller presents a good case for putting in the strips a week later. I think the choice depends on circumstances and what happens next. I refer to stray swarms, origin unknown, and they must always be suspect. If the swarm is from one's own apiary the only sensible course is to return it and no other action is necessary. If a stray then the action taken depends on what the beekeeper intends to do with it. Most small beekeepers will use it to produce a surplus and for this the supers must go on as soon as possible. Every swarm goes steadily downhill for the first six weeks. No appreciable number of new bees will hatch until four weeks have passed. Add two weeks for them to reach foraging age. By this time much of the original swarm will have died from wear and tear and old age. Thus to take advantage of a swarm the supers must go on at the start, when it will fill a shallow super in a week, weather and flora permitting. We have a strict rule here. Supers on, strips out. If we wait a week there will be larvae present and mites will be entering to breed. The strips will have to remain several weeks to meet them coming out. In this case the supers must stay off until it is too late to benefit. If the strips go in at day one they will kill most of the mites in a few days and can then come out. Putting in a floor insert will show whether infestation exists and is slight or severe. If one is unsure where to position the strips put in four instead of two. Once the supers go on further treatment will be of the "harmless to honey" type. I have rarely had a problem with swarms decamping, perhaps half a dozen in sixty years. Some take a swarm and hive it straightaway. This is wrong. One should capture it in a suitable box or skep, not too small, not too big and leave it close to where it was captured, shaded from the sun, until the evening. Then move it to the apiary and hive it in the last hour of daylight. I always run them in at the entrance. When all are in I shut the entrance to around one square inch. Swarms do not take kindly to an entrance fourteen inches wide. Maybe their instinct tells them it is too big to guard. Open it up a few days later. They have ample stores for a day or two in their honey sacs and the young ones are already making wax. Consider a boost feed two or three days later, especially if the weather changes or the nectar dries up. Here we have the most unpredictable weather in the world. Blazing sun and ten to fifteen pounds of nectar one day, heavy overcast or rain the next. Sid P. _________________________________________________________________ Sid Pullinger Email : [log in to unmask] 36, Grange Rd Compuserve: [log in to unmask] Alresford Hants SO24 9HF England