This year, I've had numerous bee swarms come to my home. I can't tell if they've absconded out of my own hives and I can't tell, or if bee swarms are somehow attracted to apiary sites for whatever reason.
Last year I had a swarm land in my front garden. This year, I've had two at one of my sites, and five at the other, too much to simply be a coincidence.
It makes me wonder if I should be setting up bait/trap hives at my apiary sites.
Well, they say they don't like to fly very far from where they left, so I would guess they are your own bees.
I hung a swarm trap from a tree in my back yard and caught 6 swarms in it this year only 1 was mine ;-)
But then again I have 3-4 feral hives that I know of within a mile of my house so its a bee rich environment ;-)
In 2008 I started bk'n by cutting two feral colonies out of my parent's barn. I set up my main yard about 150' away and there's always been hives there since, except for this summer when the dimwits on the neighboring property started spraying their orchards during the day and I started getting pesticide losses.
So I moved them to my outyards and what happens? About a month ago a swarm moves into the barn, first time in 7 years. Maybe coincidence, maybe there's a saturation point, donno.
Swarms certainly like the smell of an old hive. I'm sure the smell of a apiary is attractive even if they are occupied.
There is a good chance they are not from your hives. I get 2 or 3 very large swarm into my swarm traps fro somewhere to the west of my house. I have watched several of them come in and I even videoed the last one and put it on Beemaster.
Jim