Yesterday, a little later than the previous two days, I was looking at another box to make sure they had room since there was a whole blanket of bees out front when it's hot. The box that had been doing their swarming and returning was next to it and looked calm and non-eventful. Partway through the first hive, I noticed there was increased activity next door, and then bees were pouring out. Been there, done that, so I wasn't worried as I figured more of the previous days. I went through the first hive (looking at all the queen cups) split it up, and then went to find the swarm. It was way above my head in a cedar tree. And this had been some time. I thought maybe the prior ones were trial runs and this was the real deal. I set a box over there, but they weren't moving. It looked pretty big as in, how could there be much left in the split.
Most swarms I've noticed, the bees on the outside seemed quite compact, non-moving except for a few coming in. but these, lots of bees on the outside were moving all over the sides. And a lot more bees coming and going in the air. After awhile, more bees were in the air and I looked over at the box and several bees were on the outside with their rears in the air. I kept watching and more and more bees were flying in the air, but I was waiting for the whole mass to come back to the hive, land on it and go in. Quite a few came to be on the outside of the hive, but not the mass I saw in the tree. Looking over at the swarm, I could see a few bees here and there coming to the hive. It appeared it was only a few at a time until not so many in the air over by the cedar tree. No swarm left, and I'm pretty sure they all came back.
Now while I may not have all that experience of observing swarms, I feel I have more than the ones who call someone all panicky about bees setting up residence in their tree. If I can't tell if bees are swarming or mating, how could someone who don't know about bees. I'm starting to think it's very good advice to tell a caller, if the bees are still there at 6 p.m., give me a call, rather dropping everything and rushing right over.
I keep checking the other splits and have never noticed such things. Did I miss them, or why the one several times and the others no such activity? This is something new to me, never had come across it before.