Two swarms in half an hour.

[Perry]

Got a call this morning advising me that a house across the road from my furthest yard had a swarm hanging in a tree. I loaded up and headed out.
I got to the house and sure enough, there was a basketball sized swarm hanging on a branch about 10 feet off the ground (easy for a change). I got my ladder out and set it up beneath the swarm when something caught my eye. There on the ground, walking around like she's out for a stroll, was a virgin queen! How I hadn't stepped on her is beyond me. I picked her up in a clip, shook the swarm into a box, and let her loose inside. I'm not sure if there was another queen in the swarm or not, but figured what the heck.
I then figured I better go check my yard, although I had been there less than a week ago. When I got to the yard, I noticed what looked like the beginning of another swarm from one of my hives. Sure enough, the big swirl started and up up they went. I watched them go about 50 feet up and start hanging around a tree top and I figure that one's gone. I figure I'll wait till it settles and in the meantime I check my notes on the hive that swarmed.
My notes indicated that the hive was queenless a week ago, and that there were 4 or 5 supercedure cells capped. I had taken 1 frame with a cell and made up a 2 frame nuc with it, and left the rest to hatch out. I checked the 2 frame nuc and sure enough, there was a virgin in it.
Back to the swarm, I noticed it wasn't near as high as before and as I watched over the next 5 minutes, it settled into a small tree about head height about 30 feet from me. Too easy! Within 10 minutes I had that one in a box. I never bothered checking for a queen because what I believe what was happening was this hive threw swarms with virgin queens. None of the ladies seems prepared to duke it out for control of the parent colony.
Go figure. 

[Jen]

Nice day for you Perry~ and nice hearing from you too 

[Lburou]

Great story Perry, wish we all could have been there for a lesson in swarm capture. 

[blueblood]

Great job Perry! I am glad to see the weather has finally warmed up enough for you to start having some fun too!    I wonder if one of my hives did something similar today?  I found a 2 queens in the same swarm.

[apisbees]

Perry although you pulled a nuc in the week from your last inspection the hive would have under gone a serge in bee population due the the emergence of the brood over the last week. I would expect that the population in the hive was greater when the hive swarmed than when you pulled the nuc out of the hive.
when we find cells in a hive and we do a split swarm we need to take into account that in the few days it takes for the queen to emerge that the emerging bees are ever increasing the hive population so we may not of reduced the population enough to satisfy the swarming impulse.
Just a thought.

[Perry]

Perry although you pulled a nuc in the week from your last inspection the hive would have under gone a serge in bee population due the the emergence of the brood over the last week. I would expect that the population in the hive was greater when the hive swarmed than when you pulled the nuc out of the hive.
when we find cells in a hive and we do a split swarm we need to take into account that in the few days it takes for the queen to emerge that the emerging bees are ever increasing the hive population so we may not of reduced the population enough to satisfy the swarming impulse.
Just a thought.

You are probably right Apis. The nuc I made with one of the frames with a cell on it was only 2 frames of bees in a 5 frame nuc box, just enough to take care of a new queen when she emerged. In hindsight maube I should have moved more frames and bees from the parent.

[riverbee]

well perry, i am a little behind myself and a delayed reply, sure nice to read a post from you!!!  i know you said your schedule was really hectic.  congrats on the swarm captures!