# Think one of my Warre's swarmed today.



## lostboy (Feb 20, 2016)

So my son called me at work this morning and said there's a bee tornado in the driveway. He said there was a solid cylinder of bees, thousands of them, from the ground up to about 10feet spinning around, with bees everywhere. He said they went up higher then dispersed in all direction. Now, I know my son doesn't like my bee obsession, he's afraid of bees, so there is surly some exaggeration here but one of my hives looks a little emptier looking in the back window and there was less traffic at the entrance. The other day there was so many bees in there I could hardly see the comb, so it's possible. I checked the trees in the surrounding area, nothing, also I have two baited swarm traps close by , nothing there either. Should I take a look inside this weekend or just watch and see how they go? There's still a lot of bees in there, pollen coming in, a lot of bees coming and going, and I added a third box about two weeks ago. Any thoughts would be great, thanks.


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## grantsbees (May 9, 2016)

Personally, I would just let the bees do their thing. Swarming is just one of those natural things you let happen when you own Warre hives. Now, if the colony has absconded, that's something to be concerned over. If there seems to be decent traffic at the entrance, I would say the bees have successfully split up and swarmed. Maybe you'll get lucky and trap them.


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## lostboy (Feb 20, 2016)

I agree, took a quick look in that hive Sat. I was surprised how heavy the top two boxes had become, the top one had tons of honey in it. I only took one bar out of the top box, the boxes were full of bees, still lots of activity , with pollen coming in. I'm amazed at how many bees are in the other hive, s many coming a going that you can't count them.


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## grantsbees (May 9, 2016)

I'm just as amazed at one of my hives. It's like a highway of bees in 2 directions. My other hive... not so much. How many years have you kept bees? Is this the first time you've seen activity like this?


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## lostboy (Feb 20, 2016)

Yea, my hives are like grand central, even the one that swarmed. I started with these two warre's in April, my first shot at Beekeeping, I built three hives from plans and had enough wood left over to build a horizontal top bar hive. Right now I have the two packages of carniolan bees in the warre's , I also have a lang nuc I picked up the end of May from a guy in Wilbraham that is from a over wintered treatment free hive, that one I'm still hoping will build up enough to get through the winter. It's been a pretty interesting trip so far. I also came across a fellow employee when I was working in Northfield Ma who lives in southern NH. who has 20hives that are winter survivors and he said he's never treated them, for anything, ever. I'd like to get some of his bees next spring.


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## lostboy (Feb 20, 2016)

Well that same warre hive swarmed again late this afternoon and I caught it, what a rush. I sprayed them while they were in the air with a hose so they didn't fly far, but the landed out on the end of a branch about 50ft up in a pine tree. I made a contraption out of a pool skimmer pole and a empty water cooler bottle with the bottom cut off, scurried up that tree and out on that branch three times scooping bees from underneath until I got almost all of them, there were a ton of bees, funny as heck, 57 year old guy climbing up there, never got stung. I shook them into a KTBH that I built earlier this year, at 8:00 they were still there, I had no where else to put them, hope they stay. Not sure whats going on in that warre now, I'm guessing they'll re queen, but two swarms in 13 days, how could a queen have left with both swarms. Still trying to understand whats going on.


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## lostboy (Feb 20, 2016)

So today I checked the swarm that I caught from one of my warre's on Wed. They are going to town on building comb, I cut a lang wax foundation into 1 1/2 strips and attached it to my top bars as a guide and they're building off them, so far so good. I also took a look into my lang nuc that I put into a 8 frame lang hive and I finally see capped brood and larva in uncapped cells, so there is finally a laying queen in there, yes! Maybe they will build up enough before it get cold. All my bees are foraging like crazy, I took a walk up the power line right of way on the side of my property with the dogs this morning and couldn't believe the number of my bees on this white round golf ball size flower there, I never payed attention to it before but now it sounded like I was standing next to the hive, thousands of bees everywhere for a couple hundred yards, cool.


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