And I can’t keep up with it

I thought I was doing better now managing my hives. I got into the existing hives and made sure there was a queen cell but not multiples. Or so I thought. There was another swarm Monday in my swarm tree. I suspect this one may have actually been a wild swarm, as I was outside and there was nothing, then about 15-20 minutes later there was a swarm happily settled in the tree. I got them set up in a nuc box, moved it up the hill Tuesday morning with the other colonies, and got onto procuring additional equipment. I bought two “garden hive” setups (3 medium instead of 2 deep) and I planned to move some bees into the new hives at lunch today. My bees had other plans.

Hive number 2 (the one I thought had the first swarm) just swarmed today. I’m certain of the source this time, as I watched the bees pour out of it. They’re in the same spot in the same tree – this is now 4 swarms in that tree within 2 weeks (5/5, 5/13, 5/16, 5/18), and my 2 hives from May 4th currently number 6. I guess it’s a good thing I have arranged an outyard I can move a couple of them to, as I would hate to sell back down to two and then find out one of them didn’t successfully raise a new queen, or swarmed down too small to be stable. I think my bees may be Carniolans, and the swarminess they’re showing this spring seems to support this. I’ll get this latest swarm into a box today, and hopefully I’ll get a chance soon to post something other than another swarm update.