smallest swarm ever?

[beebod]

Neighbour phoned to say he found a small ball of bees, grapefruit sized, at the base of a wire fence about 10m from my hives. I scooped some up and dumped them in a nuc and the rest marched in. They barely cover about 2 sides of one comb, seem quite "nervous" and fan/scent vigorously whenever they're disturbed. They've stayed put and are happily going through a 1lb jar of weak sugar syrup every other day.

Is this the smallest swarm ever? What were they doing on the ground? Any one got any ideas what they're about???

I've heard of a "mating swarm" but have never managed to track down what that means.

 

[Beeconcerned]

It's a cast.

 

[Andre cardona]

is you queen clipt has you hive swarmed

 

[viridens]

It's a cast.

 

[jezd]

a cast is a swarm, anyway I had a cast last year with about 30 workers and a queen lol

 

[kazmcc]

I was going to say is her maj clipped. I've been told that with clipped queens they don't get that far though. Is there a hive nearby?

 

[kazmcc]

I was going to say is her maj clipped. I've been told that with clipped queens they don't get that far though. Is there a hive nearby?

Ooo, get me, all advising and stuff LOL, getting too big for my bee suit Very cute little swarm btw

 

[susbees]

Is there a hive nearby?

OP:

about 10m from my hives

Seems so....

 

[For want of a better word]

And the largest... MSN news

86kg landed on Chinese beek !

 

[kazmcc]

LOL. Text overload last night, I had been studying and got used to skimming instead of reading properly. Must read properly. 100 lines by today

 

[beebod]

Just thought you'd like an update. It's now been 3 weeks since hiving this small cast. I looked through them yesterday and found just 30 bees! Yes 30, they were in a tiny bunch, very calm and still so I could count every last one, no sign of a Queen. I understand now when people say they just throw small casts like this into the top of large colonies and be done with it.