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Did I catch two swarms or one big one?

1204 Views 4 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  squarepeg
This morning just as I was pulling out with the family to go to church my son said, Hey daddy look at all of those bees. I looked over my shoulder to see a medium size swarm hanging from my neighbors small tree right next to their carport. I got out of the car and told my wife, We have to get this swarm! I don't want the neighbors to get angry that our bees have swarmed on their property. When I got to the swarm I noticed another swarm on the ground in a clump of grass. This swarm was larger than the one in the tree. The group in the tree was under the group in the clump of grass. I had a nuc box handy and was able to get the group in the tree in the box easily. I set the box next to the group in the clump of grass and they started going in the box. It took 2 hours for the swarm to fully go in and needless to say I missed church today. My question is did I catch two swarms in one box?
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It was an Easter blessing.. I would think maybe just one big one that part started to break off. Well hopefully what ever you have performs well and survives.
Good luck thats my two cents

Randy
It will be largely productive. Numbers matter. Happy Easter!
I doubt the bees even know the answer to your question. Swarms are chaotic and often are the merging of more than one swarm or they have several queens in them, or they are two swarms where the bees aren't clear which one they belong to, as evidenced by the growing and shrinking of the size of the clusters...
i had this happen yesterday too. within a few minutes of each other swarms issued from two different hives. one of them appeared to have changed their mind and i thought i saw it return to the hive. but when i got to the tree where they collected, there were two decent sized swarms hanging within 8 inches of each other. i set a box beneath the tree and dropped one of the swarms to the ground and they marched right in. while i was waiting for them to get in the box so i could move it and place another box for swarm still hanging in the tree, that swarm took off for the woods. the caught swarm is still in the box today, and has started foraging.
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