Bill Owens and the Bees that Found Me

At GBA I ate lunch on Saturday with Bill Owens, the only Master Craftsman Beekeeper in the state of Georgia. I was telling him about the swarm that appeared in my backyard last week. I told him they weren't from my hives because my hives were chugging along and hadn't absconded.

Bill suggested that the bees were from my hive. Perhaps the hive I re-queened actually had a queen who wasn't laying due to the dearth. When I added a queen, the old queen gathered some bees and left. That makes sense to me because when they returned to my backyard, they landed about 20 feet in front of the hive from which they probably originated.

Today I came home about 3:30 to find the original hive looking like it was being robbed. I closed the top and put on a robber screen. The frenzy continued, so I got out the hose and sprayed water over the hive as if it were raining. When I stopped the hose to go back to work, I found that the bees continued swirling and frantically going toward the hive.



I left the hive closed up - bees can come in and out at the right lower edge of the robber screen, but it was otherwise closed up.
When I came home tonight, I noticed a clump of bees at the corner of the telescoping cover. What could this be? I wonder if a queen were in the center of the clump. Maybe they are balling the queen after all the ruckus this afternoon and maybe it's the small swarm trying to return to the original hive.

I guess I won't know the rest of the story until I can open the hives on Thursday. I'll leave it relatively closed up and we'll see what happens.