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Well they didn't stick. Most of them were back on the tree yesterday. While Haley and I were debating what we wanted to try next, the same hive cast another swarm. The new swarm seemed kind of confused by the fact that there was a swarm on the tree already, and they hovered around them for a few minutes before landing right next to them. We decided at that point to just cut to the top of the tree off and see if we could get them that way. We staked a tarp down on the ground this time, and obviously both swarms got mixed together pretty indiscriminately when they fell down. We managed to get most of them into a bin, but when I went and dumped the bin into a hive I had set up, a LOT of bees flew right back to the tree and perched just below where we'd made the cut. I had a robbing screen on the hive, so I just locked in the bees that hadn't flown, and then I went into their mother queen's hive and got a frame of open brood for them. We were going to try again to get the rest of the bees down, but they didn't settle nicely and seemed kind of agitated and were moving around on the tree a lot, so we decided to break for lunch and reassess the situation later. Well, after lunch the swarm seemed a lot smaller, and I noticed that the hive they had issued from was fanning like crazy at the entrance, the whole apiary smelled like Nasanov pheromone. I inspected a couple of hives, and by the time I was done, there was only a grapefruit sized clump of bees left on the tree. Then this morning, the hive swarmed again, so I guess they just called them back to try again the next day. I opened up the entrance on the hive that had been locked up and the bees in there didn't run for the hills when I did so, and some started orienting, so maybe there is a queen in there, or at least the brood has made enough of them stick. We'll see. I left a bait hive nearby to see if the swarm is interested in it, but I don't have the time to mess around with them anymore today. Maybe tomorrow if they are still there.
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