The Season's First Swarm

I was setting out this morning on my early morning walk which takes me past our apiary.  It was a little after 6:00a, there was light in the sky, but the sun had not yet come over the horizon.  Just past the hives there is a honeysuckle bush which I've been meaning to take out, as it is an invasive species.  But today I saw something in it, a decent-sized dark mass.  When I got close I could see that, yep, sure enough, it was a swarm.

Now this was a bit of a surprise, as we have been keeping an eye on our hives and they seemed to have plenty of room to grow.  Colonies typically swarm when they feel they are running out of room and have the resources to start a new colony.  But here was the proof that we were wrong in our assessment, hanging on a branch a little less than waist high.

My first thought was to grab a standard Langstroth hive and put them in there, as we have done with all our previous swarms.  But then I had another idea.  This swarm, compact and close to the ground, was about as easy a swarm to catch as I was likely to find.  And I had been trying to figure out a good way to populate my top-bar hives.

A top bar hive is different from what you probably think of when you hear the word "beehive."  Instead of a Langstroth hive, a rectangular box which can be added to vertically to increase the available space and in which the comb is built inside frames, a top-bar hive is usually horizontal, all on one level, and the bees build their comb which hangs down from a bar which runs the width of the hive.  It's neither better nor worse than a Langstroth, just different.

I went in the house and grabbed a cardboard box.  I shook the swarm off of the bush and into the box.  Then I carried the box over to the top-bar hive and dumped them into it.  Then the waiting and worry began.

It was about 6:30a when this was happening, and it was about 42 degrees outside, much colder than the bees find comfortable.  As long as they were clustered, they could maintain their temperature.  By shaking the swarm loose, I caused them to lose their thermal advantage, and they didn't like that.  I could have waited until the temperature rose to tend to them, but as I was pretty sure they had already been there overnight, I was afraid of losing them if the scout bees found another location.  So I took a chance.

Even at that there was, and still is, a chance that they might abscond, that is, leave the hive I had placed them in to try their luck with a different site.  Adding to my worry was double-handful of bees clinging to the original swarm site.  I tried several times to shake them into my cardboard box and add them to their sisters in the top-bar hive, but the only took to the air until they could re-settle on the branch.  If I had missed the queen, and she was still in this small cluster on the branch instead of inside the hive, then more likely than not, all the bees already hived would fly out and join her on the branch, leaving me back where I started.

I finally took my morning walk, and when I returned, things were about as I had left them.  Most of the bees were in the hive, a somewhat larger cluster was hanging on the branch.  I made coffee, had my breakfast, and went to run an errand which took me away for a couple of hours.  I fretted all the way home, sure that I would find an empty hive, a swarm back on the bush, or worse...nothing at all.  No bees in the hive, no bees on the bush, no sign of where they had gone.

Imagine my relief when I parked and saw bees hanging off the entrance of the hive, and no sign of a cluster in the bush.  They're still flying in and out, and I hope they are getting down to business and building comb in which the queen can lay eggs so this colony can grow.  They could still abscond, based on what I've read, but I'm hopeful they'll like their new home.

We'll see.