The Anti-Swarm!

[Jeff M]

I had a very unusual experience with my bees yesterday.

Last Thursday I checked my bees in the morning and discovered a very large cluster of bees covering two sides of my national hive. I assumed they were getting ready to swarm so collected them in a box and later transferred them to a five frame nuc. After that everything seemed fine until yesterday.

My wife was in the garden around mid-day and came to tell me that she could hear a lot of noise from the bees. When I checked the hives, the bees were piling out of the entrance to the nuc and starting to swarm.

It took about 10-15 minutes for them all to leave and I watched the swarm move across my neighbour's garden to the next garden along. I was watching them whilst standing on a bench hoping to see where they settled so I could retrieve them later.

They stayed above that garden for about 15-20 minutes before turning around and heading back to my garden, straight back to the nuc. They formed a big cluster on the outside of the nuc whilst they were filing back in as quick as they'd left. Most curious thing I've ever seen!

Glad to have the bees back and they're still happy today back in the nuc.

Anyone seen this before or have any idea what happened?

 

[Erichalfbee]

I'll ask the obvious
Is your queen clipped?

 

[Finman]

.
The hive is too full of bees and you have hot weather in Britain just now.

Add a new box and check, does the colony has swarming cells.

 

[Jeff M]

I'll ask the obvious
Is your queen clipped?

No, wouldn't have expected her to fly that far if she was.

 

[Jeff M]

.
The hive is too full of bees and you have hot weather in Britain just now.

Add a new box and check, does the colony has swarming cells.

The bees were in a nuc. However, the nuc was getting more sun than the hives!

 

[Finman]

The bees were in a nuc. However, the nuc was getting more sun than the hives!

You wrote National hive. I did not meant the nuc were you put the clustered bees..

Have you opened the national hive?

 

[Erichalfbee]

No, wouldn't have expected her to fly that far if she was.

Oh sorry, I didn't realise you saw her fly with the rest of the bees.

 

[Finman]

.
The Queen returned to old hive with swarm ???? Never met that...

 

[maddydog]

Oh sorry, I didn't realise you saw her fly with the rest of the bees.

Seen swarms of bees leaving hives only to return a little while later. Generally involves virgin queens getting mated

 

[Erichalfbee]

Seen swarms of bees leaving hives only to return a little while later. Generally involves virgin queens getting mated

yeah yeah.......not on the ball. I didn't notice they had been nuc'd 5 days previously............
Obvious innit!

 

[rugbee]

I'm sort of wondering why they would leave the hive and camp on the outside getting ready to swarm were they only on the front by the entrance only