[Ben Brewcat]

This just seems weird. I got a swarm call from one of my outyard hosts. This yard has one boomer colony so I was expecting it. I let my colonies swarm if they want, and don't aggressively manage for swarm prevention.

So anyway I get out there and yep, there's an about five-pound swarm on the first tree the swarm would find, about 40' away. Classic. I caught them, marked the queen and set them up. Now meanwhile, the (presumed) parent colony is stinging and butting the heck out of me and has a beard (unusual, I use SBBs) so I take a look. Another queen walking around right in the beard! :s

So I reckoned at first that for sure I was catching the swarm from this colony. Now I'm not so sure... the one I caught was too big to be a secondary/tertiary swarm I would think (two virgins in afterswarms was one thought I had). But it was right there in front of the parent colony....

I haven't seen a queen when swarms issue... might they cluster on the entrance with the queen? I don't clip (though I'm getting better about marking!). It's always looked like they just kind of light out and land 50' away to do the checklist. Anyway, anyone speculate on what I'm seeing?

 

[Joseph Clemens]

Yes, many queenright swarms can issue at the same time, even from the same colony. Swarming colonies raise many virgin queens - each one can lead a swarm.

 

[Ben Brewcat]

But since the prime swarm issues while the virgin queens are still capped, that means that I got a 5-pound secondary swarm and was seeing a tertiary swarm bearding on the colony? And missed the prime?

 

[RayMarler]

Last year I had 2 different swarms fly into boxes in the yard. Each time, the swarm had split into 2 different boxes. One had the old queen of the issuing hive and the other had a virgin. A total of 4 hives from seemingly, at first, 2 swarms. Later that fall, I got a small swarm that had 3 queens, all seperated by being balled tightly. I played with one ball, trying to get to the center of it, and the queen flew away. I left the other two and a couple weeks later I had a single laying queen in it.

 

[dcross]

They don't read the books, it might have been the primary and a secondary on the same day.