The Strange Swarm of Yesterday

Yesterday's swarm from the old hive was strange. The bees bolted out of the hive as usual and swarmed around our backyard and that of the neighbor's. But it seemed like the bees couldn't decide where to form a cluster. Some were on the bush in the neighbor's yard where they went to during the previous swarm, some where on on ivy bush that grows over the fence that separates the two yards, some were on the top bar hive (TBH) and seemed to be going inside, and a group favoured the wooden nuc box of Alan's. We saw lots of fanning as if the various groups of bees were trying to signal that they had found the best spot. As always there were bees fanning at the entrance to the old hive trying to get everybody to come back home. In the end the bees chose the TBH, mainly the right hand side entrance where the bees ended up in the previous swarm. We are not sure what happens to the queen in a situation like this. Does she also go into the hive and fight it out with the resident queen?

If you remember, the previous swarm ended up moving in with the TBH, but that time after forming a cluster and being placed in a nuc box. The swarms are getting smaller in volume each time and apparently getting tied of doing the whole swarming routine.

Here's a closeup movie of the swarm in action.... you can kind of get a sense of the speed that the bees are leaving at...


Here's one of Jessica as she chats about where the bees are going:


Here's Jessica summarizing what happened in the end:


The following is a summary of the swarms that have happened so far. This is more for my memory than for anything else:-

1st swarm: from the old hive - swarm placed in right hand side of the top bar hive
2nd and 3rd swarms: simultaneously from both the old and new hives - joined larger swarm placed in the left hand side of the TBH
4th swarm: from the old hive - swarm placed in wooden nuc box but 30 minutes later the bees leave and mostly go in the right side of TBH
5th swarm: from the old hive - swarm never gathered anywhere all together but in patches in several different places. Eventually all the bees again went into the TBH, mostly on the right side.

So, with all the merging that's been going on we only have two extra colonies even though we've done 1 split and had 5 swarms.