Swarms everywhere…what’s happening?

[GrumpyFarmer]

Good day.

I have had a couple of flow hives for a couple years. Just joined and this is my first post. Nice to not be a lurker anymore.

This morning I went out to till my garden, but it was too wet. I looked up into my peach tree to see if any peaches started yet, and saw a swarm. The swarm was about 15 yards from my hives.

While we were getting stuff set up to catch the swarm, I saw a second swarm flying around…this was also about 15yds from my hives. What’s going on?

Anyway we proceeded to catch the 1st swarm and put in a nuc box. (I have not see the sexond swarm since the sighting…they were flying)

A little more detail…our strongest hive seemed fine today when we pulled a frame of brood to put with the swarm…our weaker hive, we had queen cells in it a few weeks ago when we inspected and they had gobs or room and empty frames. That a queen could lay into if she wanted. This hive was very weak coming out of winter and had lots of die off compared to the stronger hive. Anyway we thought since we found QCs in it they were going to replace her. But today the weaker hive seemed fine as well.

Anyway I am wondering what might be going on why we saw multiple swarms around our hives? Any thoughts?

[Eva]

Hello and welcome! Swarming is normal for this time of year My guess is that both your colonies swarmed, even though you only spotted the QCs in the weaker one. Possibly the swarm cells in the strong one were just too well-covered with bees to notice them - happens!

By the way, when you see more than one QC, the colony is not superseding the queen but preparing to swarm. A supercedure (queen replacement) cell generally will be made in one spot on a central frame. Workers make multiple cells for swarm prep and these are usually along the lower section and bottoms of frames.

Your bees certainly know the space they have available, but that isn’t the only factor in their decision about reproduction. Availability and abundance of forage is another one, and there are surely others most non-bees like us would not think of

[GrumpyFarmer]

Thanks for the warm welcome and sharing some knowledge. I appreciate you. Have a great day.

[GrumpyFarmer]

Well, we have a queen…it’s the wrong color for this year, but it’s the marker I had with me​:roll_eyes:. here is the instant reply in photos . (We put them in a 8 frame brood box this week)

[beajaq]

Many bee keepers have claimed that this year is one of the smarmiest. We had only 2 hives, now we have 5. I know we likely did not catch all the swarms.