Saturday, April 16, 2016

The feral house hive has swarmed

It was a pretty good sized swarm & by the time I got my camera all but a few were inside already.

Look at all those fat little tails up in the air. 


As you may recall from a recent post, the hive had grown considerably.  I was mowing the lawn today and was under the largest apple tree  and I looked up. I was in the middle of a swarm. I was expecting it, but never saw them come out or settle anywhere, but now I bet they were in the tree all along. In any case, I turned the mower off & walked with the swarm towards the barn expecting them to ball up in one of the fruit trees. It seems they already had, and were headed to the old feral hive in the corner of the barn. Sure enough, they moved in.  This should be an easy cut out if I do it right away. I wish I had more time, I'm already way behind on everything.

Although I didn't see them come out of the house, the heat signature from the hive is now much smaller. Still a good size hive though, they may swarm again.

before

after



I wish they had gone into one of the empty hives I didn't get around to setting up. :-)

4 comments:

  1. Too bad you didn't see em before they found that old cavity.

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  2. I assume it's the OLD queen still in the house. You're right; they could swarm again.

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    Replies
    1. My understanding is:
      Usually the old queen leaves with the swarm. Sometimes accompanied by virgin queens if they emerge during or just before the swarm. Left behind normally are capped queens, & the 1st to emerge kills the others. Secondary swarms will probably have virgin queens as they haven't had time to mate.

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