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Courting Our First Swarm

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“Baby come back
Any kind of fool could see
There was something in everything about you
Baby come back
You can blame it all on me”

~ Hall and Oats, Baby Come Back


Urban Bee Swarm in Chicago

As I type this, thousands upon thousands of our girls are sitting up in the old maple tree on the south side of our house, where they’ve been for almost twenty-four hours. Yesterday the scouts were moving southeast. Today, they’re mostly traveling northwest. In the meantime, the hot wind is howling with winds gusting up to 30mph. Are the bees regretting their decision? What will happen if they don’t find a suitable new home? Do they ever return to the original hive?

Things looked a bit crowded when we last inspected the hive. Saturday we got an extra super from the Chicago Honey Coop and added it to the hive that night. We ordered two more from Betterbee. Ironically the bees were swarming yesterday at the exact moment that UPS was delivering our new supers. Last night with the bee swarm swaying on a branch high overhead, Greg created a second hive with the new supers. He put a bowl of sugar water on the roof, and a fresh bouquet of lemon balm at the hive entrance. Watching his courting process was heartbreaking–how he loves our bees.

We’re both sad to see the bees go, but watching them swarm–the sky thick with bees–was something I will never forget. Fortunately, plenty of our girls stayed behind. In fact there are so many bees buzzing about the old hive today that it doesn’t look much different than it did before the swarm. Now, we hope that our loyal girls are busy raising a new queen, and that the gypsies will discover the new hive.



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