Bee swarm (or mating flight?)
Quick background: Two weeks ago, having found queen cells, we split our hive and moved the existing queen into a new one. What we caught on video yesterday, was what we thought was the new queen's mating flight. In hindsight, we think this was a swarm, but it was quite small in the end, despite all the excitement from the bees. Quick timeline: - Split the hive two weeks ago - Minutes after 2:30pm, noticed what I originally though was small swarm of bugs near the hive (I was just very luck to walk out back at the right time) - By the time I had my phone out to start to record the video, the bees were everywhere! All flying around and covering about a 50 foot by 50 foot area. I was completely surrounded. - Within 5 minutes or less, I could see them thicken above the brush pile - By the time I walked around, they had definitely formed a clump - Settled down in the swarm within 30 minutes - When I checked back 3 hours later, they were gone. We caught the whole thing on video, so check out it out here ... http://youtu.be/k4R_TGKiL50 Meanwhile, here are some photos as they settle into a brush pile on the back of the property.
