Are swarms attracted to apiaries?

[MuswellMetro]

I'll reiterate.
Each year I get swarms that are not mine turning up at the home apiary. Once, a blue marked queen when all my queens were marked yellow or white (or did she change the colour herself to throw me off the track?) Last year - three, all with unmarked queens where all of my queens were marked and confirmed present after they arrived.
as I said earlier I get swarms turning up at my apiary every year that are definitely not mine.nearest other apiary is just over a mile away.Never noticed a swarm landing in the vicinity before I had an apiary behind the garden.

yep ,same, a bit prime arrived yesterday of a very dark black bee an landed within 20ft of my hives (another swarm collector got them first as outside my apiary
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but definelty not from my brown and gold mongrel bees that are all clipped and present today

 

[td4bees]

As I said in another post recently, I found a small swarm under a seat in my garden on Monday. I carefully checked my 3 hives: 2 showed absolutley no signs of swarming and had good amounts of stores and space. The 3rd had a couple of queen cells, so I AS'd it.

Got back this evening, and neighbour came across saying they had a swarm in their garden. It was a large (primary?) swarm which had got stuck right into the middle base of a buddlia. Definitely larger than yesterday's swarm.

So, assuming it's not from my hives, are swarms attracted to apiaries at all? I know that there are other hives around my house. My house is also right on the edge of the large expanse of woodland and that could be an attractant for local swarms as well?

I will check my hives again to make sure it's not mine. Was too dark tonight.

I captured the swarm and its currently sitting in a locked down nuc.

with bees do not asume

 

[BeeJayBee]

Origin Colony to cluster is quoted at up to 100m. Cluster to destination up to a couple of miles.

I thought it was something like that distance, but there is always the exception as I found out last year when called to collect a swarm from the ground in middle of a very large field - nothing within 100m (nearer 500m) in any direction that could have housed a colony of bees unless they were living in a mole tunnel.

They take off at a heck of a speed too, when they've decided to move into their new home. It can be quite annoying expecially if you make the effort to turn up at a house to collect a swarm only to see the bees vanish into the distance as you get out of the car!

... in 'real life' bees don't congregate in apiary type set ups, because of competition for forage. So, this myth may have been created by beeks not recognising that it is their own swarm, on its first stop off within 20-60m of the parent hive, that they are looking at. There is always the exception of course.

Drones can gather, or congregate, in an apiary. Drones will also move over quite a large area. A swarm contains drones. Perhaps they scent young or unmated queens, perhaps they just follow the crowd?

We had one colony last year that was overrun with drones which we presumed followed the young queen home from her mating flight. That colony didn't raise a single drone cell all season, and nor did it have any surplus stores until the drones were kicked out and the ivy flowered.

The swarms that have arrived in our apiary were not myths, nor were they our own bees. The nearest other 'managed' colonies are about 500 yards away and 180 degrees different direction from where we watched swarms fly in.

I get an awful lot of calls out to swarms to static caravan parks. No known bee keepers nearby. Is this because there is something about the arial viewpoint of a caravan park that is "intrinsically" recognized as desirable by the swarm as an "intermediary" staging post? Or is it because there are more people around who notice the swarms?

No idea, but two calls to two different sites last year. With one site there was no apiary within sight, and unless there were feral colonies living within the roots of hedges, no suitable site for bees either because no trees and no buildings other than those on the site - which is very well maintained, and not huge. We searched all buildings and around and under caravans etc for half a day (in between cups of tea/coffee) but saw no sign of a single honey bee apart from those in the swarm. Lovely prime swarm too, it's a pity they hadn't seen it arriving.