swarm!

while weeding the raspberry patch this weekend, Mike noticed something in the euonymous bushes nearby.  something moving, and humming, and buzzing.  it was our first swarm!  we assume it came from one of our two hives, located only about fifty feet away.  he moved quickly and clipped the branches holding the clustered bees into the body of a top bar hive that was given to us by a friend last fall.  we'd been hoping to put it to use in exactly this way.  a peek in on both of our hives showed seemingly happy and very busy bees, and our best guess is that the queen and several thousand bees from the bigger hive were the ones that swarmed.  they had plenty of room in there, so who knows why.  thankfully, if that was the case, she (the queen) had packed plenty of comb with eggs before her exit, and we're confident they'll have no trouble rearing a new queen.  today is their third day in their new home, and they seem to be settling in well.  so now we're at three, and I think that's a reasonable max in this little space of ours.  we'll see what the season brings~