Usurpation

[BeeMaster2]

I wrote in a thread just yesterday about usurpation and this morning I moved most of my bees to the farm. I then repaired my mower and was mowing the back yard when I noticed a swarm collecting around my observation hive. I stopped and looked to see what was going on. At first I thought my bee were robbing the observation hive but I just could not imagine that they could find it that fast. I watched closely and figured out it being orienting flights. There were about the same number of bees outside as there were inside and the bees coming in were heavy and their wings were very loud. I took a picture of both sides of the observation hive before the bees started moving I and then afterwards. See the attached pictures.  It was a small swarm. The hive is now doubled in size. After they moved in they went after the queen. See the picture with the bright light. I have not seen her in the bottom of the hive yet but I expect I will.
The noise in the video is my lawn mower. Sorry about that.
Jim
https://photos.app.goo.gl/drLjdydklMSSEUKy2

[gww]

saw
Do you live in an area with african bees?
Cheers
gww

[iddee]

Was it usurpation, or was it the stragglers that were left when you moved the others to the farm?

[little john]

Interesting, Jim.  Both this and the other thread you mention.  I think the bottom line here is that honeybee colonies are ultimately in the business of self-survival, which can result in such 'take-overs' and also the robbing-out of smaller, weaker colonies.

One event which I've noticed quite frequently when using divided nuc boxes is an absconding from the bees in the less viable half of the box over to the slightly more powerful half. And once that 'abandon ship' dynamic starts, it gathers momentum until even brood combs in the unfortunate half are completely abandoned.  I suspect the ultimate cause here is poor divider design which, although preventing bee movement itself, fails to prevent leakage and detection of pheromones across small gaps at the divider edges.
LJ

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

That's a beautiful observation hive.  Pics of the swarm queen, wow wow wow.  To me, this type event is so rare and you have seen this twice.  Jim, You should go buy a lottery ticket with your luck.

Do you think the hurricane had influence?  Was the swarm homeless, desperate due to the hurricane?
Thank you for sharing.

[BeeMaster2]

saw
Do you live in an area with african bees?
Cheers
gww

South Florida definitely has Africanized bees. The commercial beekeepers bring them up here. Our bees have a lot of Africanized traits. They like to abscond.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

Was it usurpation, or was it the stragglers that were left when you moved the others to the farm?

No. I moved the observation hive to the farm about a month ago.
I left 2 hives in Jacksonxille for the stragglers to move into.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

Interesting, Jim.  Both this and the other thread you mention.  I think the bottom line here is that honeybee colonies are ultimately in the business of self-survival, which can result in such 'take-overs' and also the robbing-out of smaller, weaker colonies.

One event which I've noticed quite frequently when using divided nuc boxes is an absconding from the bees in the less viable half of the box over to the slightly more powerful half. And once that 'abandon ship' dynamic starts, it gathers momentum until even brood combs in the unfortunate half are completely abandoned.  I suspect the ultimate cause here is poor divider design which, although preventing bee movement itself, fails to prevent leakage and detection of pheromones across small gaps at the divider edges.
LJ

LJ,
I agree.
I saw the same thing when I tried to use queen castles.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

That's a beautiful observation hive.  Pics of the swarm queen, wow wow wow.  To me, this type event is so rare and you have seen this twice.  Jim, You should go buy a lottery ticket with your luck.

Do you think the hurricane had influence?  Was the swarm homeless, desperate due to the hurricane?
Thank you for sharing.

Van,
Not sure. This was a small swarm so it may have been a hive that was damaged and these are the survivors.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

Last night I switched the entrance from full open to queen excluder. I will keep it on for at least 4 days or until see wet larvae. I doubt very much that this is a secondary swarm.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

Update, apparently neither of queens survived. We now have at least 2 capped queen cells and no eggs or uncapped larvae. 2 days ago they were un capped.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

Today we saw the new queen for the first time. She still had the mating sign and was getting a lot of attention. She is not laying yet. I expect it will take a few days before she starts.
Jim