Swarm enters neighbor hive....??

[Intheswamp]

This was strange...

Today I was checking my hives after finding a small swarm hanging in the privet hedge thicket on "the branch".  As I was looking at the hives I hear a sudden increase in buzzing.  I could tell one of my strong hives (which I had been into just a few minutes earlier) was in the early stages of a swarm issuing from it.  Beginning to get a bit frustrated with the swarming I stood there watching (about 5' away) with bees going crazy swirling around when something possessed me to puff two or three puffs of smoke up through the screened bottom of the swarming hive.  The bees kept swarming and swirling around, but then I noticed they were starting to land on the equally strong hive  beside their hive. 

As I watched, the vortex of bees slowly settled on the entrance with many of them straightforth entering into their neighbor's hive.  Within 10 minutes the crowd of bees on the outside of the hive had reduced in number down to bees on the porch and on one corner of one side of the hive....an hour later and it looked like any other hive with bees going and coming like they do during a flow.  It was not a large swarm...a nuc of a swarm.

So....what happened here?  Did me smoking them do something to the swarm?  They really seemed to know what they were doing as the swarm never moved far from the hives....basicaly swarming in the beeyard.  This definitely caught me off guard!

Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Ed

[Jen]

Hi Ed! I find it interesting that they marched into the hive next door ~ scratching head. But if the smoke was what brought them back down... I sure could have used that idea this last month with 5 swarms. And I was just talking to my bee guru here in our area and he said "Be ready for more swarming in July!"

[Intheswamp]

You can bet I was scratching my head, too Jen!  I was figuring I'd walk with the swarm till it started clustering on a limb somewhere but then it started settling down where it was at.  Pretty wild.

I'm not sure if the smoke had anything to do with it or not.  I mean, the bees were already "in motion".  My thought at the time was that I didn't want a swarm (who really does...from their hives?).  From somewhere out in the far reaches of my brain I deduced that if smoke covers the alarm pheromone that it might short-circuit something in the swarming action...it was really more of an act of desperation and frustration than anything.    I would think that the swarm momentum at that time would be too strong for smoking to affect them much...if any.  Something made them go next door, though...??

Ed

[Perry]

My immediate thought was.............
This has me stumped, will have to think on this for a while.

[G3farms]

Maybe that hive did swarm but the queen did not come out with them, so they returned back to their hive. I would tip up the bottom box and look for queen cells.

[tbonekel]

Could it have potentially been a robbing frenzy of some sort and they were just returning to their original hive? But if both were pretty strong hives i guess that might not be it. Pretty strange!

[Lburou]

Maybe that hive did swarm but the queen did not come out with them, so they returned back to their hive. I would tip up the bottom box and look for queen cells.

I have seen a small swarm exit the hive without a queen.  I know there was no queen, because I caught the swarm and there was no queen the next day when they couldn't wait to go 'home'. 

Why your bees went into another hive, I don't have a clue.  Are you sure which hive they came from?

I split that hive into three with the queen cells available.  Don't leave more than two queen cells in a split, maybe three cells or you will have more swarms.  HTH

[Jen]

I was thinkin the same as Lburou, in that the swarm maybe came from the hive next door in the first place. When my hive swarms, the hive next door to it gets anxious and comes out onto the porch, to watch I guess 

tbones reply is curious as well, maybe the neighbor hive Was robbing the hive you were in and they came back out and went back home ~

Those are the two most reasonable answers I can think of 

[LazyBkpr]

I have seen a hive abscond and go into another hive due to disease or mites etc..., but I have never seen a chunk/piece/section/amount of bees split away to join another hive.....

[iddee]

I think it's happening to Ziffa today.

http://www.worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/index.php/topic,1385.0.html

[Intheswamp]

Thanks for the feedback, ya'll.  As for which hive the swarm issued from...I was standing within 5' of it when it started and watched the bees come out of the hive on the right.  They swirled in the air for several minutes with a mass activity in front of the hive.  Then bees from the swirling swarm started landing on the hive on the left until the entrance and the sides adjacent to the entrance was covered in bees.  Many of the freshly arrived (though short traveled) bees quickly entered the hive leaving a small contingency on the outside.  Within and hour all seemed normal once again.  The swarm definitely came out of the righthand hive and entered the lefthand one.  It made me raise an eyebrow, for sure....but very neat to experience. 

Here's a shot of the two hives taken this afternoon...I *think* I measured 4' between them when I initially placed the blocks.


Here is a shot of the "receiver" hive probably 20 minutes after the swarm landed/entered...


Beats me, I'm just glad I didn't have to hive another swarm.   
Ed

[Jen]

Well Ed! Your bees are just weird! 

[Intheswamp]

<chuckle> No arguments there!!!