Got a call at 6 pm tonight, folks 5 miles from us found a swarm in a honeysuckle bush on the edge of their yard. Wife and I loaded up and drove over. Low hanging fruit….18” off the ground. Maybe five pounds of bees. I pruned everything down, then cut the main stem. Shook them off in front of a five frame nuc box. Probably 80-90 percent were in the box in 15 minutes. I’ll go back at dark tomorrow and haul them home.

This is my 51st year keeping bees. ( western Pa ). I’ve caught hundreds of swarms, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one before Easter .

I’ve seen them from local colonies in last week of April fairly often over years but we haven’t had weather for it this year. Lots cold windy weather = little pollen and colonies about 7-10 days behind schedule.

It’s pretty common for there to be swarms earlier in April around here but those early ones are off colonies returning from almonds

Last year, I had a swarm call on 4/15. But it was leaving as I pulled in. About ten years ago, I caught a swarm on April 30th. Those were the only April swarms I’ve ever encountered here in Pa. Go back 40-50 years ago, you never heard of a bee swarm before May 5th. The beekeeping calendar sure has changed here. A lot earlier bloom times too.

We've been getting swarm calls for over a month down here.

All our package bees here all come from Georgia. Gardners and Hardeman .

Our long term swarming time starts around first part of May and pretty much is driven by the farm country turning golden from dandelions. But it somewhat depends on specific climate location within the state——east/west proximity to Lake Michigan shoreline or how far north you go. My area usually runs out of dandelions by May 12th. Go 2.5 hours north and the dandelions start right as the local ones end. I grew up 20 odd miles off the lake. There’s about a six day difference in progression of spring within those few miles east to west based on lake effect

They sell a ton of them. Nice thing is we can get the wholesale price if we drive down to pick them up. Club next county over usually does a group buy goes down and picks up a pick up truck load.

But nucs are the main starter colonies here.

Mike is originally from here; lived about 10-15 miles north of where I grew up. At the time he bought Spell Bee he was the largest outfit around here but the commercial landscape in this area has drastically changed since then and everyone is much bigger nowadays

There’s a couple local guys who make the drive to Georgia every April for bees. They charge folks here $135 for a 3# package. Thats cheap, most other suppliers are $180+. Another nice thing is that the packages are fresh. Pick them up on Sunday at 10 am….they were flying around in Georgia less than 24 before that. They barely have time to tap into the syrup can.

Locals sell 5 frame nucs for $185+….but it’s usually late May, early June before they’re available.

I hived a swarm on last Monday. I was at the farm and there was probably a 3lb'r hanging on a old hog panel fence, in some tall weeds, partially on a t-post.... LOL. Not one you could just cut loose and drop in a box. I set a old, empty hive on the ground below them and started scooping with my hands. I eventually found the queen. Most of the bees were in the hive within 30 minutes. Packages are way too pricey anymore, we usually end up catching one or 2 swarms a year. My only surviving hive from over Winter was a swarm that showed up in a empty hive last year. That queen was/is an egg laying machine. I already made a split on them 2-3 weeks ago and it doesn't look like I even made a dent in the population from what I saw going in and out of the hive yesterday.

Question for you bee guys........I checked the internet and got conflicting information as to ratio of domestic honey bees kept in hives vs. wild honey bees that have hives in hollow trees, buildings, etc. Any idea what the ratio is?

Also, having followed some of the bee threads, have concluded it best for me to be content you help you guys feed em and let you raise em. Am also amazed at what a bee can do. Few weeks back when the apples were in bloom, temp in upper 50's, low 60's, winds 15 mph plus........seemed like tough conditions, yet the bees were working them. The trees were all pollinated...........and now loaded.

I saw a guy geting a swarm out of a tree driving to work yesterday. It was a bee keepers yard.

There’s not nearly the number of feral colonies as the was fifty years ago. Mites took care of that.

This is true. Despite claims by some I would estimate the feral population to be a tenth of what it was pre-varroa.

And I say this with some solid personal experience as I got my start as a beeliner running the woods locating bee trees. And have done bee removals since that time.

Back in the early 60s, I went beelining every September with my Grandfather. He had a small cedar bait box loaded with anise / sugar syrup. Bees loaded up heavy, we could get a bearing on where they were going. Caught a couple more, where the lines intersected, you’d find the tree. If you weren’t gonna cut it that day, we’d whitewash an X on the tree, marking it that it was already claimed. We used a huge David Bradley chainsaw, wedges, a five pound sledge to get to the comb. Hauled home the comb in galvanized water buckets.

As a kid, I remembered thinking this was a lot of work to get some honey. But thinking back, it wasn’t just about the honey, it was a Fall tradition. Today, folks would be horrified if you cut a bee tree.

I aint ever seen blue bonnets with flower topped out on them at the end of March, but i did this spring, never have I seen red oaks foliate and pollenating before the pines, yet I did this year. Never seen pecans and hickory foliate at the first of April, yet I did this year. got a pretty good idea what is occurring and its found in Matthew 24

We're right on track here in MN. Actually, a little late as we've seen Dandelions (our first nectar source here) earlier than this year in the past.

I usually see my first swarm cells the very end of April/first of May. Haven't found one, yet.

They sky aint fallin.

Caught one in my swarm trap at my Church about 4 weeks ago. About 5 frames of bees worth. Once moved to my farm they became pretty aggressive. We had to walk about 100yrds away to get them leave us alone. I requeened her as soon as I could and they seem to be acting a little calmer with the flow going strong. We've got 6 hives at the farm and one swarm trap out. Should get at least another swarm in the trap before all is done in my area.

I doubt if there is any type of accurate % estimate for the nation other than "small". Here's some info from Michigan that likely is somewhat representative of the country but there are definite differences by region.

Before tracheal and varroa mites arrived on the scene in '80s there were feral colonies around most wood lots and old farmstead throughout this state. It would have still been a very small percentage of the total population because this has historically been a state of commercial bees managed for pollination services but there were colonies in trees and buildings etc that had history of not being managed and having existed for a decent amount of time. Most of those feral type colonies likely escaped from swarming pollination colonies but in that era they were able to survive on their own after departing the managed hives. The double whammy of tracheal mites followed right behind by varroa mites for all practical purposes wiped out the feral colonies of the state. During the early 90's MSU ran fairly extensive surveying inconjunction with the USDA to find wild hives that had survived. In Michigan they found exactly zero. Obviously they could have missed some but most old time beekeepers from my great grandparents/grandparents and even dads time frame knew of various tree locations, etc. They came up with nothing. During the same period the University also was running sampling to find bees that had survived the mite attack within managed colonies. Those bees basically became referred to as "untreated survivors". USDA collected a sampling of bees that have been used to produce some bee stocks that are currently somewhat resistant to the parasitic mites on the bees. The vast majority of the genetic stock that the USDA ended up with came out of Michigan in the mid 90's and early 2000 time frame. The % of survivors without any chemical intervention at that time was 1.5%. So pretty easy to see that there would have been negligible number of feral survivors.

One of the upsides is that things arent nearly as bleak as they were 20+ years ago. The levels of mite resistance are higher now as there has been some time for genetics to spread. But mites are still a very real issue across a wide swath of the country.

The neighbor that taught me beekeeping would rather cut a bee tree than open his own hives, lol. I'd find them and he would cut them.