A Swarm In July Is Not Worth A Fly

" 'A swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in July is not worth a fly’—for it is then too late to store up honey before the flowers begin to fade."
~from Wild Life In A Southern County by R. Jefferies, 1879

Our bees were NOT supposed to swarm now! Unlike our Genesis colony, which we kept up on the mountain and lost to the wax moths, we now have our hives just outside the kitchen window. We can see them all the time and Lisa has been checking on them regularly. We've given both of our colonies two hive bodies, so they should have had plenty of room, and the one that swarmed had filled less of the frames than the other one that has not swarmed. We were hoping to put supers on them within a week or so, but Lisa checked them just yesterday and thought we had plenty of time since the frames were not full!

We are very concerned that the colony which lost this swarm will be too severly weakened this late in summer, and we are sad that now we won't be able to get any honey from them this year. And if we can capture the swarm, will they be strong enough to make it through the winter? It seems doubtful.

Would we be able to put the swarm back into the original hive? We are still novice beekeepers so we don't really know. We will have to identify the queens and decide what to do with each of them. If we can capture the swarm we will be calling in for some help in identifying the queen since we don't know exactly what to look for.

At least we were successful in getting the swarm to land on a tree in the front yard, not far from the original hive. We made such a racket, that I'm sure folks could hear us all the way across the river! Erica was doing the dishes when she noticed the right bee hive buzzing around very vigorously and told me to look at the bees. When I saw the bees, I ran out to get Lisa who was heading to the garden. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew she would be interested.

Lisa immediately yelled, "They're swarming, oh no! Get some pots and start banging!" Erica hastily handed out some pots and pans and Lisa, Matthew and I commenced to making the most noise we could! (I think my pots had the most melodic sound of the three of us.) Christina went to the front porch and began ringing our large dinner bell. We watched the cloud of bees hover above our house and move to above the side yard and slowly on up toward Simon's tree house tree where they gradually settled as a mass waaay up toward the top!

We succeeded in persuading the swarm to stay close to home, but how in the world could we get to that branch 40 foot above? I asked Matthew if the fire department had any ladder that could get up there. He said they had three extensions but we would need something solid to lean the ladder up against, not just some little branches.

We put a hive box with a bit of honey underneath the tree in hopes that they will find it and decide to move in. That would be the ideal conclusion to this puzzle, but what are the possibilities of that happening? We don't really know. We will be watching them carefully tomorrow to see where they head off to.

Lisa suited up and wanted to check on the hive that lost the swarm. She was happy that there were still very many bees left in the hive. She had been afraid that Matthew weed-eating below them had caused them to swarm and maybe the entire colony had departed, but that is not the case. She thinks it must be a legitimate swarm.

She didn't check them until 8:30 or so and it was starting to get darker. But since I had not taken any pictures of our new hives, I decided to capture the moment on film anyway.

Here is Lisa checking the frames:







Here is the tree where the swarm landed. You can't see them in this picture, but you can see Simon's tree house. The swarm would be above the top of the frame:



Waaay above the tree house you can make out the glob of bees:



The pictures didn't show up too well since it was so late, and when I zoomed up on them it got more blurry than I wanted, but maybe you can get an idea anyway:




Simon was a trooper, and went up on the hill with Lisa when she got a closer look at the bees. He didn't get very close, but afterwards he decided to put on the bee keeper garb just for fun:





I say that he was a trooper becasue this is what he looked like just one week earlier after being stung in the face by two honey bees:





He wasn't wearing a veil when he was changing out the bee feeders, but we have done that chore several times before without a veil. This time, however, was different! He put the first feeder in with no trouble, but the second colony didn't like him being there and let him know it! He's not been allergic to bee stings before, but I guess with two of them getting him in such a sensitive area made the difference. He didn't feel like going to church that Sunday, but after some cayenne pepper, the swelling went down pretty quickly. Some children may be scared of bees after something like that. Simon was a bit nervous about bees for a day or two after the stings, but he was very interested in them today, just a week later.

So, we have a swarm in July, which, according to the old proverb, isn't worth a fly! So sad. But will we be able to salvage something out of this experience? I guess only the days ahead can tell the rest of the story.