a swarm of bees in June

Yesterday it was a passing dog, and today it was a swarm of bees.  I don't think they were out of any of my hives, since they didn't look ready to release swarms, but you never quite know with bees.  I was suspicious yesterday that there were rather too many bees interested in the stack of spare hive parts in the corner of the garage.  Was it simply that they could smell the remnants of honey in the supers, or were they scouts looking for a new home?  When bees are swarming, the main swarm sends out advance parties to research likely sites for a fresh colony, and the swarm then votes on where to go by some method not yet fully understood by science.  Bees will come to investigate the smell of wax and honey, which is why the beekeepers always hold candle making days before April or after September, when there won't be too many bees out and about.  But I always keep my spare equipment in the garage, and the bees aren't normally that interested.  I was suspicious.

All was quiet in the garage first thing this morning, but when I opened the door to get my gardening tools, I was met by a cloud of bees waiting to come in.  Hmn.  I donned my bee suit, went through the pile of boxes to check that they didn't already have bees living in them, and stacked them neatly on the paving outside the garage, ready to put away later.  They needed sorting out anyway, since they were not in a sensible order, with things I only need in the autumn like ekes for feeding having ended up on top of the heap.

Mid morning, as I weeded and planted in the back garden, over the sound of Radio 3 I began to hear the unmistakable sound of a swarm in flight.  At close quarters it is loud, resonant, and unlike anything else.  A cloud of insects appeared by the end of the house, swirling in all directions, and circled around the pile of equipment.  Looked like I had trapped myself a swarm, mine or somebody else's.  After a while the Systems Administrator appeared looking agitated, and wanting to know whether I had seen the bees.  I explained that I had, but that I couldn't do anything about them until they had stopped flying.  I was pretty sure they were going into the boxes, so once they had decided which box to live in and formed a cluster, I would dismantle the stack and shake them into a nuc box, and take the box up to the apiary.  The Systems Administrator went and lit a small fire in the grate, in case this plan did not work and they went down the chimney.

And that is as far as I got with my plan to deal with the bees when it was time to go on a local horticultural society garden visit.  I wanted the bees to settle down in their stack and stop flying before I tried to transfer them anyway, so there was no point in not going to see the garden.  I will let you know how it went in due course.