This summer I removed an exposed colony from a pine tree about 35 to 40 feet up. Evidently the swarm got trapped there by bad weather and started building comb on the branches. I thought it was a fluke, being up here in NE Ohio. Well, I got a call the other night from the same homeowner. He found ANOTHER exposed colony in the same clump of trees! This one is in a blue spruce about 20 to 30 feet up. I am going to get it this week and combine it with one of my smaller hives. What are the chances of getting TWO exposed colonies in the same year, in the same yard, in the same clump of trees, this far north? :-D
I had four swarms land in the same tree this past year, a fifth landed in the shrub below the tree, and yet another in a tree about 20 yards away. They are all currently housed in my home apiary..... :-D
Sounds like a good place for a bait hive.
My boss told me just recently that when she was a little girl, the neighbors hive would swarm every year and land on the same exact branch of the tree she had in her yard. When they decided to trim that tree, she asked her parents to leave that one branch because the swarm would arrive there. They did leave the branch and the swarms kept coming.
Since I am going to combine them with another hive, I am going to try to keep the combs intact, unless it has brood. If it has honey/nectar and I let my bees rob it, it will get all chewed up. Has anyone kept an external hive for display? How do I go about preserving it?
I second the bait box idea. Sounds like a special tree.
The colony turned out to be dead. Got down into the upper 30's a couple of times. No food. See my other post about preserving the hive in General Beekeeping. I am definitely putting swarm traps there next spring!