It's Swarming Season Again

I had a "preswarm" yesterday - the bees were bearding & masses were flying in front of the hive. I took a couple of pictures, and then waited. After 10 or 15 minutes they went back in. So I figured I'd better make a split. This hive lost its queen a couple of weeks ago (I'm not sure what happened), and I left a couple of queen cells. So I was pulling frames for the nuc, and checked on the Q cells. One queen was hatching, but was having trouble - the end of her cell was constricted, and she couldn't get through. So I pulled a bit of the cell away, and she emerged very lively, and went down into the nuc. I returned the frame with her sister's cell to the main hive.



While I was doing all that, another hive swarmed. The bees came boiling out of the hive. I wish I'd caught that on video, but was busy with the first hive. As usual, they landed in the apple tree. I did get some photos and video of them flying and alighting - pretty nifty. I set up another nuc and collected them. It was the first time I didn't suit-up, and was bare-handed (I did have my veil on). It was a bit unnerving when I shook the branch, and had a mass of bees fall on my arm, but they were mellow. I did get stung once - maybe one got between my arm and the tree?





I reported on this on FB, and a beek friend who's keeping a split of her own over here said she'd seen bearding on one of my hives the day before. -But it was a different hive. >sigh< I suppose I need to make a split of that one today. Actually, I'm going to Demaree that one. I just hope the queen doesn't decide to swarm anyway. But I have a lure hive up in the apple tree, just in case.

I love my bees, but am starting to wonder about the time I need to spend on them. Another >sigh<.