Swarm Season 2021 - Saxonburg Swarm

It's that time of year!  And fortunately, it wasn't our bees that swarmed...

Swarm from Saxonburg, PA

A dear friend gave us a call that her tree hive swarmed.  20 minutes later, we started searching for the queen.  I never did spot her.  Based on a lot of bees moving on their own to the nuc box we brought, I would say she's probably in my first few scoops of bees to the box.

They really wanted to go into a hole lower in the tree than their original home.  So once I had a lot of bees in the box, I smoked out the hole.  They vacated the space and began swarming higher in the tree.  So we waited a few minutes to let them settle.

Since they were out of arm reach for even Christian, I told him stick the smoker up there and smoke them.  Then we stood back and waited to see what their behavior was.  ...they all went to the box on the ground.

I'd call that a win!  We'll know in a week or so if she's in there.