Swarm merge

[grizzly]

Has anyone ever seen or heard of two hives swarming simultaneously, and the swarms merging in the chaos to settle as one. ?

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Not yet, why, did you? That would be quite a sight tho....

Brian

 

[enrico]

Sounds like big queen fistycuffs sometime in the near future!!! Never seen or heard of it!
E

 

[RoofTops]

Swarsm can merge. I went to collect a swarm a few years ago and there was very clearly two different colours of bee in the swarm. I put them in a box but when I came back in the evening all of one type of bee had gone and the remaining bees were all the same colour. The explanation I believe was there were two queens from two different colonies and one of them left.

 

[Poly Hive]

Never seen it but it can happen the books say.

PH

 

[Widdershins]

Yup - happened in the middle of a Queen Rearing course we were holding!

 

[crazy_bull]

Yes but only seen it once (might happen more often but if you don't see both leave and then combine you might not know if it was 1 or 2)

They were colonies next to each other, one swarmed and went and began settling on a small tree 20 yards behind the hives, i carried on the inspections in the other hives, a few minutes after the first swarm it's neighbour swarmed and proceeded to settle above the other one, about a foot above the first, the first then decided to take off with the other following suit and both then settling in a hedge 100yds away all together, i guess the various bees got confused by the various hormone signals being emitted around the site.

I hived the now massive swarm and left them to it, when i inspected a week later i only found one queen so guess they sorted it out amongst them selves.

C B

 

[grizzly]

Its just something didnt feel right yesterday, the swarm i posted pics about came from my apiary without question, upon opening hive 1 i was greeted with about 6 QC at the base of the frame, 2 of which emerged in the container after removal.
Hive 2 were in a foul mood upon opening, covering my hands and stinging through the surgical gloves, making an inspection awkward so i closed them up to go through again at the weekend, their mood possibly denotes they are queenless, so after managing the swarming instinct well in previous years, this time around they got the better of me in style, i was quite surprised at just how many there were in the swarm, which made me think of merging, the more likely scenario is both have swarmed and ive just caught one which happens to be a biggy.

Hot spring days and weekends away spell disaster!!.

 

[PaleoPerson]

Yes, a friend went to collect a swarm and as he stood there, two more joined it. The same as others have stated, they ultimately sorted themselves out but it took three brood boxes to move them.

 

[Haughton Honey]

It's quite common to throw two swarms together to form one bigger colony....particularly useful if you have two boxes of foundation that you want drawing out. Just let them sort themselves out once you've hived them both at the same time.

Never personally seen two merge by themselves but I'm sure it happens sometimes.

 

[Chris Luck]

In the miiddle of such a situation now..

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8543&page=88

Chris

 

[drstitson]

Neighbour had this yesterday.

Collected and hived a large swarm. a little while later swarm took off again which he caught. However - discovered colony with queen still in the new hive.

so two for price of one!