Yet more swarms

A week after the swarm arrived and took up residence in a nuc (now moved into full hive), and another swarm turned up two or three metres away in the leylandii  (this has also been moved into a full hive, during that process I spotted the queen, my guess newly hatched.  They had been in the nuc for a couple of days and no eggs had been laid, so it will be a few weeks before I find out if she has been successfully mated).  Its likely that both these colonies came from the same hive, the first being the main swarm with the old queen the second a newly hatched princess.  Both these colonies have been moved to a new apiary.

 I had just finished preparing these two colonies to be moved when one of the people who live close to the apiary walked in and announced that a swarm had arrived in his garden. As he had once kept bees as boy at school I knew it was highly likely to be a true swarm and not bumblebees or wasps or any of the other insects I take calls for.

A five minute walk later and there it is, a small swarm in a young pear tree.  My guess is that is yet another newly hatched princess from the same hive as the last two swarms.  Dropped them straight into a nuc where they will spend the next few days.  If it is another new princess I will combine them with the last one, loads of small new queens is a waste of time, getting them up to a full colony asap is the priority. I'm not aware of any other beekeepers in the location but there must be one, and losing a lot of bees.  Not going to be much left of at least one of their hives.

While all this is going on honey is still coming in at a rate.  There is an enormous amount of blackberries growing wild in the hedgerows at the moment and the honey being extracted is very light and floral.