Swarm in two clusters

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davidstacey42

New Bee
Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Messages
9
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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.
 
I've collected a swarm in three small clusters, only one queen. Where the queen lands, leaves a pheremone trace then moves elsewhere- some bees stay with the pheremone, others (most) go with HM. I think there's a picture in Ted Hooper of a garden table with three lumps of bees in a similar state
 
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?

How many scout bees got it completely wrong?

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?

Not that unusual,but not common. Given time, they will normally unite to one cluster, but that may not be the case if conditions are cooling down....

Of course it is possible there were two swarms!

Naturally I've been through my books but they don't cover these two aspects of swarm behaviour.

And nor can we, until a particular scenario arises.
 
Went home at lunchtime and they've absconded (neighbour saw them heading off in a southerly direction). Still, good experience trapping my first swarm, even if it was only to give them bed and breakfast...
 
my hive swarmed again yesterday, getting a bit miffed with this weather as its playing havock on my hives.

anyway, when it swarmed, it was in 2 clusters, both good size swarms so was debating if it could be 2 seperate swarm as they were a good 15 to 20 metres from each other, anyway, whilst trying to hive the lower one in a bush, I miseed the queen and they all swarmed again. The sky was black!! when i looked up the tree for the other 'swarm' it had gone. so just assumed they had merged in witht he other swarm

anyway, swarm started to settle in a bush so placed brood box on bush for them to fly directly into. For some unknow reason, after 20 mins or so, they took tot he air again and land else where. When i looked on the ground beneath the brood box, there was a load of dead bees and there was still bees attacking other bees!!

could this infact have been 2 seperateswarm but as they where quite close together, could they have got confused with the smell of maybe 2 queens in the air??
 
Our bees swarmed a couple of weeks ago in a tree close to the hive. It was in what appeared to be two clusters one bigger than the other. Throughout the day they did merge into one.

I got the impression that the first branch they were on wasn't strong enough to hold them so they gradually moved over. This is of course a theory and we didn't find out if there were two swarms or one.

They were collected and donated. (I have a picture but haven't posted enough yet)
 
That may explain the behaviour of my swarm. Paradoxically, the branch lower down the tree was thinner than the one higher up, to which the larger cluster was attached. That's why I find these sort of forums so useful. My textbooks just show a stock image of a rugby ball shaped cluster in a tree/hedge. None of them mention that the bees may form more then one. Before I started with bees, I nearly trod in a swarm that had settled on the verge and looked like a cowpat. I filed that one away for future reference so I'll look down as well as up when following swarms.
 

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