Warm spell, what's it gonna spell?

[fatscher]

In my area (mid-South =>southern Middle Tennessee and North Alabama) we've seen temperatures steady approximating mid March-like weather. The regional inspector and I went through 14 hives at one of my outyards on Wednesday and 10 of the 14 had at least 40%-60% of the frames in the entire hive each with day old eggs in them, solid brood pattern. Egads. Next week is supposed to hover around 60-65 for daytime highs, the next week after that isn't supposed to be too far off the mark.

Is it realistic to expect swarms in early early March, in my temperate zone 6b-7a?

Anyone have any thoughts about what to do? I feel it's too early to split.

But just in case, I priced an order for more hive bodies and equipment at around $250 (I'm small time) from Rossman (I'm a sucker for Cypress).

[kenr]

In western North Carolina its been in the mid 50s to upper 60s the last two weeks.While everybody around here is going this is great all of the beekeepers me included are walking around with gloomy faces knowing that if this keeps up the trees will start to bud and then a cold spell will come along and kill most of the blooms that make up our spring crop.But such is life and there isn't one thing that we can do about it.My girls haven't started to really take off and expand yet but if this keeps up any day I'll start to see it.Good luck on your season.

[Brent Bean]

Cheer up kenr, after all the ground hog didn’t see his shadow, this is suppose to indicate an early spring. Perhaps that big rat has gotten it right and we will have a bumper year.
Good Luck

[Growing Boy]

My hives are in full build up mode. While the temps have been warmer than normal ((80 today as opposed to 60 average) pollen seems to be plentiful and I swear I'm seeing orientation flights.Building wooden ware like crazy. While I know a cool down is inevitable
the main flow here will start in a couple of weeks (the potinia bushes that ring our property are getting ready to bloom.) Getting up a couple of swarm traps, mediums and frames. Anticipate, don't procrastinate.

[johng]

I'm not sure about swarms in your area but, I feel pretty sure we will start seeing some here further south real soon. My hives are exploding right now and the long range forcast still looks very promising. We will prob have a cool down between now and Easter but, I don't think it will slow them down much at this point. It looks very good for those early packages and early queens coming from the south.