New Swarm Captured
April is traditional a swarm month. The bees have just emerged from the winter, the queen has created a large amount of new bees, the plants are in bloom, the days are fair and it's just a wonderful new beginning for the bees. While checking my bees at Necaisse, MS, in a 3000 acre area of mostly longleaf pine trees, I came across this swarm at one of the three locations I have in this area.
This swarm had landed on a hurricane damaged dogwood tree about 30 feet from the hive stand. I used a three foot section of a pine tree as a base to set the hive onto. The section was cut from a downed tree that I had cut after the hurricane to get it away from the hive stand. This photo was taken just before I brushed the swarm into the hive body.
After brushing the swarm into the box, I decided the branch immediately over the box was in the way, it interfered with the box cover, so I cut the branch off. This gave me more area to lift the box away to a new stand after a day or so . When I brushed the swarm into the box, I looked in to see if I could see the queen. Sure enough, she was there,- I could see her clearly because she was marked. This queen and swarm is from one of the hives where I marked the queen, so I knew which hive these bees had swarmed from. I will put another box on top of this the next tine I go down to the area in May.