Earlier this week we successful caught our first swarm of bees. As I was leaving the house I noticed some unusual behavior around the hive...it was swarm activity. Fortunately David was home and we watched the bees cluster in a nearby tree. The bees were from B hive which is the hive we split a few days earlier. After several shakes we got the bees into a nuc box. The queen was spotted, but when we tried to catch her (so that she could be marked) off she went. Forgot that swarm queens can fly...
Swarm bees were relocated to the front of the property--what will
hopefully serve as the bee yard next summer. The hope is that this
location will be less likely to interfere with daily activities like
gardening, playing in the yard...walking out the door. This year we
have had some angry bees.
Exhibit A:
This photo really doesn't do the swelling justice, but suffice it to say I look like an Avatar Navi. Usually the bees just bother me, but those girls were po'ed today. David killed 3 or 4 before he was stung in the face. Currently he is sleeping off a benedryl-induced coma. This was received minutes after stepping into the garden to do some weeding (far away from the hives).
Shortly after the attack, the bees began to swarm (A hive). We followed them for a while but they high-tailed to the neighboring fields and we lost them. Honestly, I'm not too sad (nor surprised) about their retreat. After the other day's swarm, we got into A hive to make a split (David spotted swarm cells while pulling some honey for the swarm). We couldn't find the queen, eggs, or larvae and there seemed to be lots of honey. We held off making a split hoping to find a queen later. Guess there must have been a queen after all?
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