Thursday, May 17, 2018

Where did it come from, and where did it go?

It really is swarm season!  Across the street, a swarm was captured in a bait box. 
Yesterday I saw this on the grape vine:
It was a pretty large cluster.  I assume it came from #2 since I had seen a swarm cell in there a week before.  But assumptions are often incorrect.
Today there was no activity around the entrance of my bait box so I figured they were not interested.  (It may be that the bait box is directly above 2 active nucs.)  So I called a bee guild member to see if he was interested in collecting it.  He called me back within a half-hour, and just before he called, the cluster had taken flight.  He could hear the buzzing over the phone.  I followed them down the street, where, instead of going into a hive as I expected, they clustered on a tree branch in front of Pauline's house.  This is approximately 150 feet from where they had been. 
About 2 hours later I went to see if the new owners were home yet.  They were not, nor were the bees.  Where they went is unknown- re-cluster or new home.
I do know that there are quite a few bee hives in this neighborhood.

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