My guess is it is a swarm from one of your colonies or someone else's.
Any ideas on what I saw going on in the beeyard this morning?
About 9 AM I heard the sound of a swarm. There was no such activity coming out of the 12 colonies I have at this location. !5' up in a dogwood, I saw a swarm about the size of a baseball-very small for the Charlotte, NC area. Bees were flying around the bee yard & I drew them over to a swarm box banging a tire iron on a hub cap. But they then changed course and started to collect under and at the back side of two colonies that still have an extra super that was not capped when I pulled my honey. (It is now capped) These colonies are about 15' apart. I put a swarm box next to the largest group, but they did not take it. 30 minutes later, there was lots of movement back & forth between the dogwood swarm and the two groups near the establish colonies. By 10:30 the tree swarm was gone and lots of bees were trying to get into the two with extra supers. Now, at 4 PM, most of the colonies have settled down & it seems traffic is normal in & out of the hives. I looked under the two colonies of interest to see if a swarm had collected on the screen bottoms, but all is clear there. Do any of you have an idea on what was going on?
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Perhaps some lemongrass oil and used brood comb would work better than "drew them over to a swarm box banging a tire iron on a hub cap". But I've never tried the hubcap so I don't really know...
i had something similar happen a couple of years ago, it turned out to be an usurpation attempt.
I had the exact same thing happen about an hour ago (except for the banging on stuff). They settled in a lilac tree about 8’ up. Maybe a cup of bees. It is 90 degrees out and I have been working outside in the sun most of the AM so I was hoping they would just go away. Finally got of my lazy rear, put a couple of frames in a cardboard nuc box and shook them in. Really too small to mess with but I could not leave them there.
Well no doubt it was a small swarm. That it came back towards 2 colonies @15' apart was the mystery. I wondering if a supercedure was taking place and one of the extra queens ran off with a small group rather than fighting it out. Then the group decided to return home... Hmmm. there could be a virgin queen sitting up in hta tree if the summer tanagers haven't got her.
here's the old thread about it:i had something similar happen a couple of years ago, it turned out to be an usurpation attempt.
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?275239-101312-usurpation-attempt
I like that you were able to draw them in by tanging.Bees were flying around the bee yard & I drew them over to a swarm box banging a tire iron on a hub cap.
Wayne
I was thinking old queen taking some staff with her. I know I had 4 capped QC in the hive to the east and was just going to let them sort it out. Flow is over, no rain on the horizon and swarming now would just be suicide. They left the box I shook them into about an hour later. Don’t know where they went an just glad I did not have to deal with that small of a swarm.
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