Shortly before I had to go out of town for my indexing convention, Hive A (Dave’s bees) decided to swarm (18 April 2018). I really appreciate the consideration–swarming before I’m out of town–and all the swarms have clustered low and close. But, you notice, I didn’t say that they were convenient or locations where they were easy to retrieve–just close and low.

I thought that these bees might just be “thinking” about swarming as they were coming out of the hive at a brisk pace, but not streaming out as with the other swarm. They clustered on the frame of the hive scales and down into the hollow of the cinder blocks on which the hive sat.

No way was I able to do a nice, neat collection. I got as many of the bees as possible–but I didn’t think I had the queen with the swarm although bees that I put into the 4th hive did stay there so I still don’t know if I captured the queen.

When I saw the brisk movement out of the hive I had put a jury-rigged swarm “trap” on the outside (cut from a plastic queen excluder in hopes of keeping the queen in), even knowing that a queen with the swarm would have slimmed down and might get through it. On inspection of the hive after collecting the bees as best as possible,  I could not find a queen so I suspect she was already out since there were some bees still clustered in this inaccessible place (I drew the line at actually moving the entire hive to get them). They stayed clustered in a way that certainly made me think the queen might well be there–out of my reach unless I took real risk of injuring her, even if I did find her.

In going through that split the day after, I did not find a queen and there were certainly many fewer bees to sort through. I decided to treat that swarm as if it did not have a queen and provided them with a closed queen cell from the ones found in the hive from which they swarmed. So–doin’t know what will happen, but it’s soon time to go take a look again.

Today (Tuesday, 01 May 2018) there was another swarm–I suspect a secondary swarm from Hive A. I captured it (another low and close, and almost convenient) but don’t have space to keep it, so I contacted the “swarm team” from our local beekeeper’s club to donate this one to someone who needed bees. (I did find it a good home.)  This swarm behaved like I had gotten the queen in the box–all the stray bees that I couldn’t capture followed the box (but since it was the second swarm I wonder if it had a virgin queen).

In retrospect, I wish I had checked that first swarm from Hive A again to see if there was a queen, or if the queen cell had been opened. If not, I wonder if I could have combined those two swarms for a stronger hive. Ah, hindsight is such a wonderful thing. Thinking about this in the comfort of my desk chair is entirely different from considering it while putting thousands of bees in a box.

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