Well I've put off posting this as long as I can. Earlier this week maybe Wednesday the Easter hive swarmed on me. It's not like they didn't give any advance warning or anything like that. We had a really wet week the previous week and there were actually bees bearded on the outside of the hive during the 4.5" that we got last Friday. I know I know what's the matter with you fat boy can't you see and understand if all the bees can't fit in the hive during a storm then they are bound to swarm.
It all started while I was putting a few bulbs in the bed next to the hydrangeas and I heard this buzzing sound. I stopped and listened for a few seconds and knew it sounded like bees. Looking over at the bee yard and there is a cloud of bees that looks like it's 15 feet in diameter floating up from the Easter hive. They didn't stop till well ensconced on a pine tree limb about 30 feet in the air. There was nothing I could do... except put the trap hive I'd been working on last week on top of a 24 foot ladder tieing another ladder to it making an a-frame monstrosity that didn't fool them for a minute.
After my wife and I got this thing up we sat down and waited. Within 30 minutes while we were watching a softball sized clump of bees fell from the swarm and exploded in flight within 10 minutes the whole swarm was 60 feet off the ground headed southeast. I tried to follow behind them with a big cardboard box in hand. Half an hour later my wife found me about half a mile from the house in the middle of the tree farm next to our place. The bees... nowhere in site.
All I can say is I'm trying to do better. I've built new boxes and installed them on the hives that John and I transferred the week before. See this link for one such transfer, five frame nuc to full sized box
Now I need to get 5 other hives down the road home and worked also.
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