Guilfordbeekeepers.org

So, after having gone through all of my hives today but one, I was in for a surprise.
The first frame I removed of the last hive revealed several swarm cells. I hoped perhaps for supercedure cells but these were text book swarm cells.
Examining the cells, I found one to have been opened. I decided to open one myself and proceeded to release a perfectly viable and might I say beautiful queen.
Anyway... I have to presume that I have thrown a swarm less than a week ago.

Should be an interesting year.

Better get ready. I set out my first swarm trap yesterday and within a hour, there were 50 to 100 bees checking it out. It may well be occupied within the next few days.

At the GCBA board meeting last night, Martha said she saw one of her hives swarming in the last couple of days. I have a deep nuc swarm trap about 7 feet up in a dogwood just on my neighbor (and fellow beekeeper) David's property. I also have a 10 frame medium with a frame of old brood comb and lemon grass oil parked amongst my active hives. My final preparation/act of desperation will probably be to get my extension ladder and make sure it extends smoothly.

I am thinking about pulling a nuc off of at least one hive maybe early next week. See if I can reduce the number in the trees this year.

No swarms yet----

I placed my swarm trap in the dogwood tree at the back of David's yard yesterday afternoon. I am seeing more drones flying and most of the hives at the house appear to be building up in a big way. I don't know if the up and down temperatures will slow down the swarming instinct for long. Once warmer weather patterns lead to a reasonable nectar flow, I'm expecting mass escape attempts.

I was in the house at the critical time when bees arrived, but as best I can tell, it was an ill fated attempt by some bees to take up with my hives. I came out to find bees on the front of 3 of my hives and some fighting at the entrances of them. Many bees were on the ground and I saw a small cluster up under the screened bottom board of one hive. After about 15 minutes, things seemed to calm down and there were about 100 dead bees in front of one hive and about 150 dead bees in front of another. During the chaos, I never could find a queen and took a few stings while trying to see if one was there.

I have seen similar things in the last few years. I saw no activity around my swarm trap and these bees made no effort to do anything except gather on the fronts of the hives. This did not have the typical behavior of robbing.

I wonder if either small and starving or queenless colony made the poor choice to try their own newspaperless combination.