Excitment in the back yard today

Neighbor comes over and says there's a swarm in the back yard, yep he was right. Called a local keeper and he came right over, first of the season for him. Hopefully they will be great producers.

I know nothing about bees, but that looks enormous to me.

Cool. I bet you made his day.

I sent a local to Syracuse bee keeper a couple today also. He called back later to thank me, and said he had gotten six swarms today.

Been a long time since I've seen that.

I'm about 25 miles west of Syracuse Albert, yesterday must have been the day! Keeper was happy, filled a large Rubbermaid tote about 1/3 full and the swarm was only 6 ft off the ground. Nice and easy, cut the branch and acouple shakes and he was done. A wonder of nature for sure, pretty fascinating. Lived in the house 26 years never seen anything like it. Just glad it was not on the house, outbuildings or vehicles. Bee keeper had some cool stories about the calls he's gotten.

Bee keeping has come back in a Big way up by us. Its nice to see and good for the environment to boot!

Is there a way to tell if the swarm is Africanized before you take it home?

Sweet! Cool to see. Unless they are your bees taking off that is....

No, but if you're anywhere north of central florida, south texas the desert southwest (lower elevations) and southern california its not a worry.
Apis mellifera scutellata aka savannah bee aka african bee and it's africanized progeny is a tropical subspecies incapable of suriving even the mildest temperate winter.

The protocol for "field" identification is morphological differences in the veination of the wings and tarsal length of the legs. Confirmation is by mDNA.

BTW, there are 25 subspecies of the Western Honey Bee all native to the old world. DNA markers from 12 of those have been found in the new world so any bee in the Americas is technically a mutt.