In a message dated 96-04-26 10:44:15 EDT, [log in to unmask] (Glen B. Glater) writes: >I had a swarm land on my back porch today, about 7 feet away from my >swarm trap which they seemed to be ignoring. > >But that's not the point of this email. > >The swarm was about 25 feet in front of my 2 hives. How (if it is >possible at all) can I tell if these bees are (used to be) mine? Generally a swarm will pitch the first time within a couple hundred feet of the original home. I have located unknown bee trees, by scouring the area around a pitched swarm. They don't go far. After the queen has rested (and slimmed down some more) for a couple days, and the scouts have found a home, they may go a half mile or more on the next trip. More certain is to look at the brood frames in your hives. You can spot recently hatched queen cells, by the perfectly round and freshly chewed opening at the bottom. You can also sometimes spot cells that were torn down from the side by the first emerging virgin, which queen died before she ever saw the light of day. You can distinguish these from old cells, which get chewed down in time, and usually are only about half sized, when they let them be, for another use, another season. If one of your hives has swarmed, you will have a virgin queen, which is very difficult to find, as they are runny, and may even take wing. They also are intermediate in size between a worker and a laying queen, so usually it's not worth the time to look for her. Hives that have swarmed, especially if they do so repeatedly, may take a long time to get going again. There is a delay while the queen gets mated and gets her progeny emerging. You can help them come back quickly by giving them a frame or two of brood about a week after they cast the swarm. I like to make sure these frames have eggs as well as sealed brood. This gives the hive another chance to raise a queen, if the virgin queen gets eaten by a bird or dragonfly while on her mating flight, or if the weather is too stormy for her to have a mating flight at all. Good luck. [log in to unmask] Dave Green, PO Box 1200, Hemingway, SC 29554 Practical Pollination Home Page http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html