Friday 29 July 2016

Late swarms

late swarm July 16 1

We recently had a swarm form up on our hedge. It was quite small but I captured it and put it into a spare hive. To my surprise, later the same day, another, even smaller, swarm formed up on exactly the same part of the hedge. It was unlikely that a swarm of that size would have the critical mass to survive. We came to the conclusion that the 2nd swarm should be added to the first. Assuming both swarms had queens, they would have to fight it out between themselves. All this happened 2 weeks ago. The merged hive is still alive. We will give it a full inspection shortly.

hives July 16

The merged colony is housed in the left hive.

1 comment:

Susanna Di Milo said...

That was brave although I love honey I am a little frightened of bees en masse