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.