Lost a swarm?

[Bee Happy]

Well, I have pictures but I've been staying away from imageshack - not much to say though. I walked out two days ago into a cloud of bees. this was my first experience with a swarm, and now I can say for sure that when the more experienced beekeepers say "You'll know it when you see it." trust them - you will - an orientation flight doesn't come close to a swarm.
They landed - of course - nice and high and out of reach of even my 12 foot ladder (which isn't here anyway). So I was plotting a way to lasso the branch, secure it up high so I could cut it off with a pole saw and then ease it down.
I went out there again this afternoon and they're gone. - I honestly figured after two days of not having a chance to shake them or get the stuff together to execute my plan that they were HOME right where they were.
Here's a couple things I noted. I can't swear one way or another that they came from my hives, but I noticed NO reduction in landing board traffic in any of the hives. (I only have four active hives so it's not too hard to keep tabs on the traffic)
There may be other hives in the area even possibly feral- and in fact my neighbor (about a KM away) had a tree full of bees before I ever got mine.
The now vacant branch shows a trail of wax where they had started building right there on the limb.
Traffic is higher at all of the hives now.
I'm just guessing but I'm thinking that if something happened to the queen (a bird's lunch?) that the rest of the swarm might act just like a shook hive and try to get adopted into the nearby hives.
what do you think?

[eivindm]

Bee Happy's picture:

[BjornBee]

A swarm almost ALWAYS first lands within eyesight of the original colony. (Within 100 yards)

I know it's easy to be fooled into thinking the swarm was not yours, and although the possibility exists that they were from another hive, 99% or better is the chance they are your bees. Nothing wrong with that.  ;)

I'd take a peek in your hives and make sure the hives are queenright. I have found out that about 25% of all swarmed hives, are never queenright again. (Injured queen, queen killed in mating, etc.) So wait about two weeks after the swarm and make sure you have eggs in all your hives.

[Bee Happy]

Thanks for the tip about keeping an eye on the egg production bjorn. I've been peeking in about weekly because of the honey flow, but I'll have to disturb the suspected hives just a little more. I do suspect a group of hives they may have come from, but the only change I noticed in traffic was an increase after the swarm (dispersed?. Left?) I had some vacant hives with old comb in them, but if they actually did move on rather than break up, the vacant hives just didn't appeal to them.

[Brian D. Bray]

A swarm is often timed with the hatching of a lot of bees during a short period of time.  In a short period of time 3-5 days the population of the hive doubles then is reduced by nearly half (back to what it was or slightly more) with lots of capped brood to be seen.
The visual evidence of a swarm having taken place is often missed by the more inexperienced beekeeper.

Post swarm signs are little if any larvae, no eggs, a good amount of capped brood, and a lot of open cells in the brood chamber.  Overall population is not an indicator, nor is foraging or orientation activity.

[Bee Happy]

A swarm is often timed with the hatching of a lot of bees during a short period of time.  In a short period of time 3-5 days the population of the hive doubles then is reduced by nearly half (back to what it was or slightly more) with lots of capped brood to be seen.
The visual evidence of a swarm having taken place is often missed by the more inexperienced beekeeper.

That would explain why I didn't see any change in traffic. Yep, inexperience got me again.