This morning, I checked my hive to see how the girls were doing. At first all was normal. bees coming and going from the hive. All of a sudden, there is a loud humming sound coming out of the hive and bees begin to POUR out of the hive. I mean really pouring. It was like a brown wave of water coming out of the hive. :shock: In the period of 1 to 1 1/2 minutes there are thousands and thousands of bee buzzing around my head. No bee suit. I was dumb struck. Several bees landed on me, but just walked around on me and them took off. I stepped back and watched some of them return to the hive. Others moved away to an short pine tree and seem to be settling there. They seem to be settling about 30 yards from the parent hive. It was truly an unbelievable sight to watch. By sheer luck I was next to the hive when it happened.
Right after work, I'll put on my bee suit and see if I can gather the group of bees located on the pine tree. This was truly something to see. What an experience !!!
Regards,
Tucker1
Quote from: Tucker1 on June 25, 2008, 03:33:34 PM
This morning, I checked my hive to see how the girls were doing. At first all was normal. bees coming and going from the hive. All of a sudden, there is a loud humming sound coming out of the hive and bees begin to POUR out of the hive. I mean really pouring. It was like a brown wave of water coming out of the hive. :shock: In the period of 1 to 1 1/2 minutes there are thousands and thousands of bee buzzing around my head. No bee suit. I was dumb struck. Several bees landed on me, but just walked around on me and them took off. I stepped back and watched some of them return to the hive. Others moved away to an short pine tree and seem to be settling there. They seem to be settling about 30 yards from the parent hive. It was truly an unbelievable sight to watch. By sheer luck I was next to the hive when it happened.
Right after work, I'll put on my bee suit and see if I can gather the group of bees located on the pine tree. This was truly something to see. What an experience !!!
Regards,
Tucker1
The bees may be gone by then.
I watched a swarm two days ago, cluster on a tree branch about 30 yards from the feral hive.
Then they swarmed off about 1/2 a mile away.
I couldn't keep up with them to find out where they went.
My wife and I were feet from the cluster.
I was looking for the queen.
they didn't stay there very long though.
About 45 mins.
Even if you don't get to them (finger's crossed here), you had an awesome experience that many of us may not get. I've heard that you can stand in the middle of a swarm and they will just ignore you...they aren't defensive. I would love to stand in the middle of thousands of bees that don't mind you at all. Some of my hives swarmed this year. Wish I'd been lucky enough to at least have seen it.
good luck,
Derrick