Honey Bees

I was in the garden last Thursday watering the bee balm plants and could hear the honey bees  buzzing but couldn't see them.  I thought that was odd and looked up into our apricot tree and saw a swarm of bees hanging.

A Swarm of Honey Bees in our Apricot Tree

I assumed it came from our hive as when honey bees swarm they don't go far at first from the hive and I don't know of any other bee keepers within a mile of our place.  I've been meaning to order new hive boxes as I prefer to have more than one hive but have not done so.  I do have two honey supers in storage that are brand new, so decided I could use them as a temporary home until I order a new set of boxes.

The Swarm of Bees up close

Bees swarm as a natural form of hive splitting and growing.  When the bees in a hive believe they are filling up the space available, the queen starts laying queen eggs.  The worker bees feed these eggs a special food (royal jelly) that will allow these eggs to grow into a fertile female.  Shortly before the new virgin queen emerges from her cell, mama queen flies off with 50 to 60 % of the workers.  They will land on a nearby tree to rest while worker scouts fly off to find a new home.

I got my ladder out, set up the new temporary home, put on my bee suit and climbed the ladder.  I sprayed sugar water on the swarm to calm them, placed a five gallon bucket under the swarm, and shook the branch.  Almost all of the bees fell into the bucket.  The queen is usually in the center of the cluster.  I then pored the bees from the bucket onto the top of the hive and put the lid on.

About five days latter (yesterday) Pam and I were cleaning the goat barn, hauling the spoiled straw and bedding to our compost piles, when we both heard thousands of bees.  I went over to our established hive and saw thousands of bees coming out and flying over to a place in our orchard.  In the orchard they were all gathering, forming a funnel of bees forty to fifty feet high.  Another swarm was forming in front of our eyes!

It's very rare for a hive to have two swarms within a week unless there is something wrong with the existing hive and the bees are all moving out.  I went in my existing hive and all is well.  Our established hive looked very good, with many bees, frames of honey and brood.  My guess now is that the first swarm I caught was from a local wild hive.

I found the swarm in a hemlock tree outside our orchard, took one of the honey suppers and set up another temporary hive, and caught the swarm like before.  Now we have three hives, two in temporary quarters.  July swarms are not known to be strong with little time left to build their winter stores.  I'll help by moving some of the brood frames from the established hive to the new ones, start feeding them sugar syrup, and hope for the best.