Hello,
This is the way I understand how a swarm travels.

When the swarm leaves the colony the first stop is basically chosen by the
queen in that wherever she lands the swarm gathers.  Later the scouts
communicate the new location and the swarm heads for the new home.  If along
the way the queen needs to stop and rest the swarm will gather around her.
I believe this is why you hear of swarms landing in strange locations.

Yesterday I was called and told that one of my colonies swarmed.  As soon as
I got the message I had a pretty good idea what colony it was.  It was a
split I made two months ago in a single hive body, and had failed to return
to add additional equipment.  I had requeened the colony the split came from
but wanted to keep the old queen because basically she survived the winter
which a number of my colonies did not.

The swarm was in a tree about 100 feet from the parent colony, 5 feet off
the ground.  I shook it into a hive body with drawn comb.  (These are my
bees so I am not concerned with disease and putting them on foundation.)
While I was in the yard I thought I would look at the other colonies.  A few
minutes passed and I heard the familiar buzz and out they came.  Apparently
mamma didn't like the new house her benefactor provided for them.  I
thought, oh well, I will wait for them to land and try again.  (I only ever
had this happen one other time.)  They were not moving away but instead they
headed right for the parent colony.  I thought, great, they will wait and do
this all over again tomorrow.  Not wanting to go through this again, I put
the extra hive body on the parent colony, thinking I would let them gather
inside and then split them hoping to control the swarm.  All the bees were
gathering on the front of the parent colony and the extra hive body.  I
spotted the queen but was too slow and she ducked under some of her
daughters.  She was on the outside of the extra hive body so I move it back
to its bottom board and let them go in.  I also grabbed as many of the other
bees that were still outside and added them.  I gave them a frame of brood
and closed it up.

There are a number of scenarios that could explain this behavior, chance
being the top of the list.  But I have some questions.  If the queen left
the hive body and returned to the parent colony how did she know where it
was?  Remember this is a split and this "marked" queen theoretically never
was out side of the hive until they swarmed.  Do queens leave the colony
once they are mated and laying?  I do not think so.  Did she just follow the
other bees in the swarm or was it just chance that they landed where they
did?  This really has me thinking!

I once heard Steve Tabor say that we really don't understand a lot about the
swarming nature of bees.  As usual, at least in my case, Steve is right.

Ron Bogansky
Kutztown, (eastern) PA, USA


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