witnessed swarm!

[tlynn]

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!

[rast]

 Yep, that would of been a rush. What is your flow from right now?

[tlynn]

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.