davidstacey42
New Bee
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2011
- Messages
- 9
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Huntingdon
- Hive Type
- warre
- Number of Hives
- 1
Came out the back door yesterday evening at about 18:00 and was horrified to find the air around my hive thick with bees. Had glanced at my hive about half an hour earlier and although there were more bees than usual on the front, activity seemed otherwise normal. Watched them move slowly up towards the orchard and typically, they settled right at the top of a tall conifer.
Got binoculars out to assess prospects and noticed that they had settled into two distinct clusters, larger one at top of tree and smaller one about 6 feet lower down. Assembled my gear and after a hasty dinner, went out to do the business. Returning to the tree, lower cluster absent but higher one still in place. Mounted ladder, knocked them in a box and hived successfully at dusk. In the meantime I checked my original hive and bee numbers appeared the same as normal. I did also notice that the swarming bees were much lighter in colour than my dark bees.
My questions are:
might the swarm have been in the vicinity of my hive because they identified it as a possible home and then moved on once it became apparent that it was occupied?
Is it unusual for a swarm to settle into more than one cluster or is it possible that it was two swarms that had just coincided?
Naturally I've been through my books but they don't cover these two aspects of swarm behaviour.
Got binoculars out to assess prospects and noticed that they had settled into two distinct clusters, larger one at top of tree and smaller one about 6 feet lower down. Assembled my gear and after a hasty dinner, went out to do the business. Returning to the tree, lower cluster absent but higher one still in place. Mounted ladder, knocked them in a box and hived successfully at dusk. In the meantime I checked my original hive and bee numbers appeared the same as normal. I did also notice that the swarming bees were much lighter in colour than my dark bees.
My questions are:
might the swarm have been in the vicinity of my hive because they identified it as a possible home and then moved on once it became apparent that it was occupied?
Is it unusual for a swarm to settle into more than one cluster or is it possible that it was two swarms that had just coincided?
Naturally I've been through my books but they don't cover these two aspects of swarm behaviour.