El Presidente.

I sense that I might be becoming a bit of a bee bore, but beekeeping is taking a large chunk of my life at the moment.
We had an apiary meeting at one of our novice’s bees; “our” in this case indicates a recreational club rather than an educational one. I must admit that I hadn’t realised how much of a novice our host is and that he is in need of serious guidance. I shall have to have a diplomatic word with him and try not to cause any offence. There were some potentially good blips to be had while it was raining quite heavily, but trying to operate my phone camera, in the wet while wearing protective gloves and unable to see the screen turned out to be something of a challenge; so here, you have El Presidente negotiating the sole access route to the apiary which is just discernable above the grass line.
 
We opened the first hive and found half a dozen queen cells that had been opened at the end, a sure sign that the lady has emerged voluntarily (sometimes the bees will open it along its side and extract her and throw her out of the hive, they can occasionally show revolutionary tendencies). There then followed a discussion as to whether the colony had swarmed where some who should know better suggested that it hadn't. The natural history is that, as soon as the first queen cell is capped ready for the larva to start pupating, the old queen takes off with half the bees. This constitutes the prime swarm: having lots of bees and a mated queen and having no inclination to swarm until next year, it is ready to hit the ground running and is a great honey producer. Seven days later, the first queen to emerge takes off with half of the bees; this is the first “cast” swarm; it is headed by a virgin who will take a week to become sexually mature, another week to be properly mated (with more than a dozen drones), and then a few more days to put on weight and start laying. This swarm will, with a little help from the beekeeper, have time to build up enough bees and stored honey to survive the winter. Each succeeding emergent queen will leave the colony with half of the remaining bees with only the last one remaining in the hive;  this remnant is unlikely to survive until winter's onset let alone make it through the winter. So, of course the colony had swarmed – several times, the evidence is the number of open queen cells and the shortage of bees.
 
We opened another hive in a similar condition and it was at this stage that our oldest member (with rather poor eyesight) noticed two swarms hanging from a tree overhanging the hives, one of which was large enough to be a prime swarm, and the other probably a second cast. Those that should know better then started arguing that one of the several hives must have swarmed while we were there. They certainly hadn’t been there when we arrived. “Never” is a dangerous word to use so I will just say that I have never known bees to swarm while it’s raining; they do not want to die of hypothermia. More importantly, a swarm of bees in the air is a spectacular sight: the sky turns black and there is a loud buzzing noise from up to thirty thousand sets of wings beating. One of those who should have known better then gave what I openly admit was an expert demonstration of how to catch swarms up a tree. I only wish I had the pictures to illustrate the occasion – perhaps another time.
 

Our beekeeping club prides itself on the quality of the afternoon teas that follow our meetings, so we went home quite content with our lot leaving our host with a colony that will, with very little attention and favourable weather, give him a good honey crop.