Yesterday I came home from the mountains around 4 PM. I was sitting in my den when I felt bored and thought I'll do this same work out on my deck. I stepped outside into a whirling mass of bees. A swarm was moving into my top bar hive.
Last week, I was sure a swarm had already moved in because there were so many bees flying in and out of the hive. I had actually thought whatever moved in was a secondary swarm because I had not seen any pollen coming into the hive, which would mean there was a laying queen. I even thought they were there overnight, but clearly I was wrong.
The bees I had been seeing were just hundreds of scout bees, responding to my old equipment and the swarm lure I had rubbed on the upper edge of the entry and on some top bars inside.
The swirling bees yesterday were part of the enormous swarm that had been investigating the hive for a couple of weeks. I taped the whole hour and fifteen minutes that it took for the thousands of bees to move into the hive, but I've shortened it to about ten minutes for you to see how amazing it was.
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