Alright enough already! So today number eight swarmed again, I suppose that they had just went back to their hive last time anyway this was a nice big swarm, I moved a hive body to their cluster location (20' from the mother hive) then sprayed with water a bit then shake into hive add bars to the top box carefully ect. Number eight swarmed late around five or six in the evening, nice normal swarm not overly aggressive cluster quickly settle in nicely ect. Checking them out after sunset they looked good lots of bees and I could hear that distinctive "chittering" sound (ear pressed against the hive box) that indicates they are working inside, empty hives do not sound like that. I will know tomorrow if number 8's baby will stay, I hope so they are a very nice hive, they start the earliest on cooler days and go the longest.

Nothing like the swarm around noon from my dreaded italian hive number 3, it was small and angry as heck, never seen a swarm that mad before they were attacking people 30+ feet away (normal attacking not africanized level). I know they were queenless because I have their old queen in a new hive that issued from that mother hive. Thus I am concluding that the swarm I got from them today was virgin maybe even two queens (two clusters close together) since a lot of bees from that original swarm went back, this might be the after effect of too many bees. This evening I checked on them (new hive from number 3) and found nothing, zipo, ahh well I didn't like them anyway, virgin queens don't smell as nice as mated queens (I'm guessing) so the inclination to stay was much lower. By the way we are still in may, our normal swarming season is june and july.

I really do not mind swarming at this time of year, so long as it is at a natural rate and not because they are low on space, I don't even mind letting some go feral once my targets are reached. Sort of and offering to the wild, if we take something we must give something back.




Shown above is that frustrating nasty swarm from number 3.