Not Another Swarm!!

Tuesday 17th July 2012
A dry, muggy day.

Just finished watering the greenhouse plants, carrying a tray of brassica seedlings to their new homes in the veg patch and there, on the pea wigwam, my first ever swarm of bees... My bees!

I ran back to the house to grab the camera, a box and my bee suit, stopping only to quickly open the lids on the hives to try to ascertain which one they'd come from, if they were indeed ours. Without any protective clothes, I made this a quick operation before a couple of angry bees started bothering me. It was quite clear they'd come from Hive 1, which was very thin on bees.

It can't have been more than about 3 minutes before I was back at the pea wigwam, cardboard box in hand, ready to work out how to collect this mass of bees. Except, small problem, no bees. Not there, not in the orchard, or Don's orchard, or the roadside hedge. In fact, nowhere to be seen. No photos and the swarm lost! At least I got to see my first ever swarm.
As last time, they'd quickly moved off and I'd missed them. About a hundred quid's worth of bees gone!

A short history of our hives might help here. After we first got our colony of bees they quickly started building masses of queen cells. We split the hive into two, putting the old queen into Hive 2. A newly emerged queen went into Hive 1.
Then we waited...and waited...and waited, but no sign of any eggs or brood in Hive 1. After four weeks we felt it likely that something had happened to the virgin queen we had put in. The weather had been lousy, but by now she shoudl have made her mating flight and there should be some sign of eggs and larvae.
So when we found a couple of queen cells in Hive 2 it seemed prudent to transfer them into Hive 1, for without a queen and fresh bees this colony was sure to eventually die out. An active bee only lasts about 6 weeks at this time of year (maybe a bit longer as they've not been able to fly much).
Hive 1 was by no means heaving and today's swarm came as a complete surprise to me. Obviously either the first queen survived or one of the queen cells hatched and, for whatever reason, off they went!

I would like to say this was an expensive lesson learned, but on reflection I don't think I've learned a thing from this experience. Bee behaviour remains a complete mystery to me.