Turns out it's nothing like the 1978 film. Our bees stay down the road from us at my friend Joanne's house where they have ample room and a beautiful pond nearby. I'd been meaning to add a second deep to the hives I started in April, as it seemed like a good idea. The bees weren't 'boiling over' when I opened the inner cover, but comb was drawn in just about all the frames. Lo and behold I got a text from Joanne one evening: "The bees are swarming!"
Her children and grandchildren were planning an evening of camping out in tents and a bonfire with s'mores when they notices some activity near the hives, which led to a cluster of bees on a small fruit tree sapling. When I arrived with a deep, the cluster was pretty well formed and I could see scout bees zipping off and returning periodically. Thankfully Joanne's husband had kept bees and we were able to retrieve a bottom board and inner and outer covers.
I had only read about how to hive a swarm and had never seen it done, other than online. The cluster had formed around the trunk of the sapling, so it was not going to be able to shake it off into a bucket, so with gloves on I scooped handfuls of bees as carefully as I could and shook them off into the box. I examined each handful for the queen, but did not see her. This was a small swarm, and within about twenty minutes I had the majority in the box. How to tell that the queen was among them? Look for fanning behavior, where the bees extend their lower abdomens and fan a pheromone which signals to the other bees from the hive that the queen is there, and to join them! This is what the fanning looked like:
Her children and grandchildren were planning an evening of camping out in tents and a bonfire with s'mores when they notices some activity near the hives, which led to a cluster of bees on a small fruit tree sapling. When I arrived with a deep, the cluster was pretty well formed and I could see scout bees zipping off and returning periodically. Thankfully Joanne's husband had kept bees and we were able to retrieve a bottom board and inner and outer covers.
I had only read about how to hive a swarm and had never seen it done, other than online. The cluster had formed around the trunk of the sapling, so it was not going to be able to shake it off into a bucket, so with gloves on I scooped handfuls of bees as carefully as I could and shook them off into the box. I examined each handful for the queen, but did not see her. This was a small swarm, and within about twenty minutes I had the majority in the box. How to tell that the queen was among them? Look for fanning behavior, where the bees extend their lower abdomens and fan a pheromone which signals to the other bees from the hive that the queen is there, and to join them! This is what the fanning looked like:
The two bees whose back ends are peeking over the edge of the board are fanning, exposing their Nasonov glands and distributing their queen's pheremone. At this point I was mostly satisfied that the queen was inside the deep, so I put the cover on and left it slightly ajar. In the morning I returned and to my sheer delight there was not a single bee left on the tree - they were all in the deep! I moved the deep over near the other two hives. Here's hoping for a quick buildup of stores and brood - July isn't an ideal start for a swarm, so we'll see what happens!