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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