This week we had both our bee hives swarm. We knew that this would happen because both the hives were stuffed with bees, many more than normal. The swarm above is in an apple tree. It is a huge swarm, many, many bees. We got them into a hive box after I took this pic. This swarm involved 2 ladders, and me acting like a statue with the box on my head. Pretty exciting event, however, I stayed very calm with my breathing and did not move. When bees are in a swarm, they are fairly docile and can be handled. They don't have the protective stinging action that a hive in a box does. We did not get a single sting.
This is the second swarm, two days later. This swam decided to hang on the Marion berry canes. These were so easy to capture. We just put a hive box under the swarm and dropped them into it....easy.
