Swarm Help Please ????????

[dirtyanklebeekeeper]

Hello all,
I came home this evening to find a swarm of honey bees on the grond in front of our hive stand. We got a Nuc box that we had made and sat it on the ground right in front of the swarm within second the bees started to march in. After a few minutes the progress stopped so I coaxed them with some smoke as the rest started to enter the box We saw the Queen when she got to the entrance a few of the bees jumped on her and pushed her off the front of the box and would not aloow her to enter. We picked her up and put her in through the top. Has anyone seen this before or can anyone tell me what that is about?

Damien

[Brian D. Bray]

Yes, the act of the bees not letting the queen into the box indicates that they already had a sight preselected prior to swarming.  The workers wanted to check out the digs to determine if the sight offered was better than the sight chosen.  Your placing the queen in the hive made that moot.  Once the queen is in the hive the chances of the bees staying have increased dramatically but doesn't insure it.  They can still abscond if they choose to unless either a frame of brood is inserted or a queen excluder is placed between the hive body and the bottom board to act as a queen includer.

[dirtyanklebeekeeper]

Thank you. we put an exluder at the entrance when we got the swarm boxed. As of yesterday the queen was on a frame and the bees seemed much calmer and were not pushing her around. We will add we did add some brood yesterday too so maybe they will go to work.

Damien