My uncle has 35 beehives on my property and ive been helping him some for years, with the warm temperatures we've been having they are swarming good. We have hived 12 in the past 10 days. Yesterday 2 came out about the same time and landed 100 yds apart, but for some reason the one swarm flew to the other and joined up making one huge one. I guess because of having 2 queen bees they kept moving around finally landing where we could get them about 12ft off the ground. Unfortunately he only has one suit so i had to cut the limb for him without any protection, after peeling it over they got pretty PO'd and ended up taking it out on my head. But we did manage to get them in. Should have plenty of honey this year as he's up to 47 stands already

I had the same thing happen last year with two swarms in the same tree that joined up. Head scratcher for sure.

Went down one year to shake packages with a commercial guy. Pulled up into a yard to see the biggest swarm I've ever laid eye on. One of those multiple merged swarms.

It literally filled an empty deep with just bees.

This swarm would have completely filled a 5 gallon bucket

Put 5 swarms in boxes so far. the last one really tested me out - put it in a box three times even with a frame of brood and they pulled out each time in about an hour. Let them go the third time and let them hang in an oak tree until 2 hours after dark. Got them down again and shut them up two days and did a combine the same time with a queenless hive. So far they have now stayed for 3 more days. Some times I almost cuss bees......but I got to admit I am addicted to it. I also keep about 6 baited hives around my yard and hang some russian scions and bait some tree branches with wax and lemon grass oil for landing spots for swarms.

I always find bee keeping an interesting venue. Thanks for the pics.

You guys are giving me anxiety. I was hoping for swarm free spring. Ours are just getting close. They’ve got the bees and started to backfill on dandelions but those came to screeching halt so we might ease past the primary swarming window.

you might ease past the primary window, then t
hey will just draw it out longer and swarm later....

another reason I keep mine close to the house - so I can see the swarms some of the times. guarantee I miss many.
our primary season is generally first week of May. Had 2 swarm 3rd week in April and 3 more. High heat and humidity now probably wont help. Had two hives yesterday bearding pretty good outside entrance. Threw another medium super on top for more ventilation - they dont need it for the honey flow yet but I thought it might cool them off a bit. Fine line between crowding the bees and giving too much space and hive beetles take off.....our flow looks to be rather slight this spring with our drought conditions

Our spring has been unusual so far. It started fairly slow and then we went from winter to summer. One of the type of years where a lot of things bloom all at once versus being spread out over more weeks. It made for an intense flow for a few days.

I wouldn’t be shocked if we go into dearth sooner rather than later. Depending on the next batch of cells that were grafted Monday hopefully I’ll be requeened enough that don’t need to think about swarms much more

Do you provide enough space and ventilation in the hive?

My son is interested in bee keeping. Can you folks provide some guidance in material, written or video that will help with the learning curve?

The abc/xyz of bee keeping is a good book. Look for a local bee keeping group and I'm sure one beekeeper would mentor your son.

Thanks Mike!

I have been fortunate to been around beekeeping my whole life but really never had any interest in them until now. I realized the past year that after my uncle passes away there will be nobody else in the family to carry on the tradition, ot to mention the benefits of having them on the property. So i decided this spring to get more involved and learn all i can from my uncle and keep the tradition going. Hopefully passing it along to my kids one day

Story's Guide to Beekeeping is a good text.

Once he's got the basics of See Jane Run beekeeping, the knowledge to get them from package/nuc through winter he needs to hit the books on all things varroa mite. Fortunately the guru on all things varroa is Randy Oliver a biologist and commercial beekeeper who writes monthly articles. His site is www.scientificbeekeeping.com .

Only one so far