Hi All A few posts have come by about secondary swarms. (Note the easiest way to tell if you have one of these is that it has no drones in it - with primary swarms, the more drones you see the worse the queen is) It has been suggested somewhere inside a book called 'Africanized Bees and Bee Mites' from about 1990 that one of the main ways the faricanized bee front moves is through these so called secondary swarms. The bees in a small cluster and one young queen invade established hives and requeen them with the new queen. I don't know if this is hype, but I have definitely seen swarms issue from one hive in a beeyard, hang on a tree for while and then join another hive. You will note if you see this that they tend to land near the top of a beehive and crawl in under the lid - my lids are all gappy. I suspect this happens sometimes when one has one of those mysterious conversions, the week runt of the apiary suddenly becomes a roading bees hanging out the front beekeeper eating monster. Another thing that I have noticed is that secondary swarms are far more problematic to hive than primaries. (I take it that is because the old queen prob does not fly so well) Anyhow Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post.