We started out with three bee hives about 2 years ago. Last spring, all three of the hives swarmed, one of them twice, and I caught every swarm but one. So, we ended up with seven hives. However, in the fall — and for reasons still unknown — all seven of the hives swarmed out and vacated ALL of the hives! No bees left. It was weird. One of them even left a ton of capped honey in the hive when it left.
So, with that backstory, it is indeed interesting to see a bee colony swarm back onto the property. The swarm yesterday looks to have taken up residence in the workshop, probably in the hive boxes I have stored in the rafters.
But, it looks like the queen didn’t like the location (probably too damn hot!) and they swarmed out again today, creating a “bee ball” up in the same ol’ tree they always seem to swarm into.
Looks like I captured the queen on the first attempt, and there are signs she has decided to stay put in the new hive. Because her swarm is relatively small, I decided to go ahead and capture the subset of bees I missed the first time, and add them to the hive as well.
Lotsa sweat … but no stings, so a very successful swarm capture all the way around. 😉