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One week before Mother's Day, I was at church helping with our annual Patch the Pirate play when Maggie got a call from Mom. Evidently there were 2 huge swarms of bees, one on a stump and one on our dog's backyard pen...both close to the ground which makes it easy to recapture. (Last year's swarm was 15 feet up in a tree!)
Thankfully Mom came and picked me up so I could get home and hive them. We were also thankful that our neighbor, Mr. F, a former beekeeper, came over and helped Dad (who was still on crutches recovering from a snapped Achilles tendon) capture the swarm on the stump. Mr. F had helped us with our first swarm last year, that we later found out was my hive!
When I got home I went right to work and popped the cover off the north hive. This hive is a hive of New World Carniolans. Because of the warm winter here in southern Maryland they had become a huge hive with wall to wall brood! The once highly populated hive was now down to a medium sized hive of bees. That and the decreased activity at the hive's entrance was enough to satisfy me that we had found our thief!
I suspect there were two reasons for the swarm: the 80-degree day and the overpopulated hive. The swarm was followed by an after-swarm (a Beekeeper term for a second swarm from the same hive). The above photo shows me returning the bees that Mr. F had already captured for us back the into the hive after I added a deep and a few supers to give them more room. Even with all that extra room, they swarmed again two weeks later...if that gives you an idea of the size of the hive.
