Wow and cool and awesome! Our local beekeeper group had a workday at the hive yard yesterday and I got to see my first swarm in action! What an unbelievable sight! There are about 70 colonies and we were doing a health check and adding supers. High volume flows for us right now and had to add a lot of boxes. The bees were all pretty agitated because they are on pallets and the grass had grown up to about a foot. Somebody decided to weed eat around the hives first since the grass was so tall and talk about irritated! They were still pinging me by the time I got to the truck when I left, some 100 yards away.
So all of a sudden I looked into the sky and told the weed-eater, "Man, look at all the bees you stirred up!" He said, "No, that's a swarm!" After a couple more minutes the sky over us was filled with bees, and they started landing on a branch about 12 feet up in an oak tree. We were able to saw off the limb and knock them into a nuc box. I think we got the queen, as they settled down and began coming and going normally after about a half hour.
What a thrill!
Yep, that would of been a rush. What is your flow from right now?
We are in the middle of cabbage palm and black mangrove is winding down. Never experienced the honey from these. My one hive has already made 2 supers and I am putting the 3rd on this Tuesday. I have a palm in my yard and it's just about to burst open with flowers. In past years I would watch the many bees on it and didn't give it any thought.