# Swarm Landed on my Hive



## LeonardS (Mar 13, 2012)

I was outside this morning observing my hives. Nothing unusual, just a nice, slightly windy morning. Some honey buyers stopped, so I went inside for about 15 minutes. When I went back outside, I knew something was up, as there were lots of bees in the air. I walked over to my hives and the front and bottom of one hive was covered in bees. I assumed they were getting ready to swarm, so I put on my suit, set up another hive and was ready to brush them into a couple pails, to re-hive them. I watched for a few minutes and they seemed to be entering the hive. In 15 minutes, half of them had marched in and more bees continued to come from the southeast. The hive had two deeps and two supers, so I popped the lid to take a look. The hive was overflowing with bees. I added another super of drawn comb and a super of undrawn comb to give them more room. Another hour later and nearly all the bees were in the hive. There was still a small ball of bees hanging under the entrance, but even those seemed to be heading in, a few at a time. I'm not sure what was going on, but that hive should now have plenty of workers!


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

and a dead queen


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

sakh....
Will it have two dead queens or will one survive?
gww


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

that sometime will differ - the bees entering the hives queen can/will be killed by the original bees - and the new entering bees will kill off the old queen. Sometime one will make it through - I would check them next day or two - after 6-7 days and you have queen cells - that's your answer


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## Dan P (Oct 29, 2014)

If your lucky you might find her in a tree or dead outside on the ground


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## LeonardS (Mar 13, 2012)

I'm wondering if one of the queens is outside below the entrance. There is still a ball of bees a little larger than a softball hanging out there. Should I just wait until morning to see how things look, or brush them into a pail and put them in their own hive?


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## Orion7 (Jun 3, 2015)

They could have lost their queen or superseded her. The virgin queen went on her mating flight and they followed her and returned with her. I had a swarm last year that left and then returned to the hive. The same hive had already swarmed a week earlier. So that was the conclusion at the local bee club.


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Check the ball of bees, just to see if a queen is in it. There may be an extra virgin that was in the swarm, or two, in the ball. Might be able to cage her and make a split of all the bees in the hive they went into.


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## LeonardS (Mar 13, 2012)

GaryG74 said:


> Check the ball of bees, just to see if a queen is in it. There may be an extra virgin that was in the swarm, or two, in the ball. Might be able to cage her and make a split of all the bees in the hive they went into.


Would you brush them into a pail or box to look for the queen, or just slowly move the bees around in the ball? They are hanging under and behind the landing board, so it's hard to see behind the landing board.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

This is why I mark queens. Figuring out what happened gets easier if you find a blue queen in the hive where a white one was. 
Use masking tape to keep hive notes on what is what and who is who helps figure these mysteries out sometimes. 

Had 5 swarms this season from my own hives. Found queens I'd marked in 4 of them. Figuring out where they came from was fairly easy.


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Some people brush or shake them into a hive box over another one with a queen excluder between the two. As the workers go down into the lower box (set up to receive a swarm, with frames) any drones and queens will be left above the excluder. Capture the queen(s) and put one in the hive below where the rest of the bees are. Depending on your equipment status, you can use nuc boxes and build a couple of nucs with any extra queens after putting them in queen cages for 3-4 days then release them into the nuc(s).

You can sometimes put a nuc in front of a hive with a ball of bees on the front and they will march in but you may not see a(ny) queens that way.


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## LeonardS (Mar 13, 2012)

I sprayed them with sugar syrup, brushed them into a pail and placed them in a new hive. It was a larger bunch than I thought. I gave them two drawn frames and so far they are staying in the hive.


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