I have had many late mid and late August swarms before, I'm not overly interested in keeping these or remerging them to their old hives though. I get chastized a bit on my feeling that swarms are MEANT to be returned to nature and given the chance to survive or fail at attempting to make theirselves a viable and maybe even prolific hive to help repopulate the wilds.
I don't mind the food competition that this can create, my hives are all good foragers and never seem to be fighting over slow or nil nectar or pollen sources, so I gladly let the bees do bee stuff and swarming is very much a bee "Stuff" thing!
The one swarm went so high up into the neighbors tree, I lost total site of their cluster in the thickness of heavily leafed branches at least 80ft off of the ground. Honestly, I have never seen a swarm lite this high above the bround before: the usual 30 foot flight hight the bees enjoy flying at (a baromentric pressure thing which helps the fly ergonomically and balanced well) is USUALLY the top-end of the swarm clustering height - but these girls doubled and nearly tripled that average high-end height.
So I wish them well, they have as much chance as any other swarm to leave relatively LATE into the season, but remember too that THESE ARE FIRST SEASON BEES and it's usually bees Wintered from seasons past who swarm earlier into the beekeeping season, so there is really nothing too amazing about their timing, they just swarmed when the population and swarm conditions were met - in their case late in the Summer because of being first season bees.
Quick update on my health...
As you might have noticed, I've done a few few posts lately, more than I was doing for a while there. I've started some heavy doses of antibiotics and we are just seeing if the infection in my skull (Mastoiditis) is clearing up at all. I will say that the aweful smell that normally makes it to my sinuses has eased a little, so I thik that it may be clearing and if THAT is the case than surgury MIGHT be avoided. But the MRI/CT Scans still show WEAKEND bone structure, so a plate of some kind may be needed around my left ear to reenforce my jaw and skull connection - we won't know until the infection is cleared and BETTER images can be taken of the damage done.
Lastly, my short term memories has been definitely blamed on the bout with Menengitis in 2001 and NOT the infection filtering from my skull into my brain - either way (and better it being from the mennegitis) I can live with some memory issues rather than the other possible troubles that the illness could have left me with.
Take care all and talk again soon.
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