I was beginning to think the swarms were not going to materialize. I thought maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough to entice a swarm to look over the log hive. I decided to step up my game plan. Kids like honeycomb and I know bees like honeycomb. I cut off a small piece for each kid (after sampling it myself first, of course).
My wife was busy working in the greenhouse. She could hear the swarm coming from over the trees. She ran into the print shop to alert me. I grabbed my camera while they were descending in the area by the log hive. I groaned…”not another little swarm” as that’s exactly what it looked like. But that was only the advance party. As they started landing on the log, more and more of them floated down, landing on the log hive, but waiting to enter. My wife wondered if the honeycomb was in the way. Ha ha, I agreed and popped it into my mouth. 🙂
5-13-15…I don’t know if it was because of the honeycomb or the spacious accommodations, but this swarm came to stay.
It was unclear exactly when this second swarm came along, but it wasn’t much later, probably less than half an hour. It was another big one. At first I wondered if the first one had decided to back out, but I checked the probe thermometer which showed 76F.
Internal temp at 76F at 5:20 pm. That means the original swarm is still in there.
The next day, the second swarm is still ‘hanging out.’ They hung around until about 3:15 pm when I was collecting ANOTHER big swarm, this time from Bee-atrice log hive. (When you’re hot, you’re hot!)
Temperature at 80F (26C). After the swarm left at about 3:15 pm, you can see wax flakes. (The bees were all ready to build comb in this hive, I felt bad for them)
Brian Vorwaller, you did an beautiful job sculpting my grand kids faces on the log.
This video shows the play-by-play of the Grand Entrance of the swarm into the Grand Kids Log Hive
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
That is a great looking hive. Is each mouth an entrance?
Yes, that’s the idea. I wondered if the entrances were too small, but if you ever look at a Perone hive, it’s at least a third bigger in size with an even smaller entrance.
That looks like a very large swarm of bees. They were very decisive when they finally arrived. I never knew that bees would swarm from such long distances and I could never find out. Amelia
It really is a great hive, no wonder they were fighting over it 🙂
😀
I am so happy for you. This is a wonderful thing to have happened. The buzz must have gotten around about all your beeing for them and they can’t wait to move in…. Lucky you
Lucky me is right.
That poor second swarm was just a little too slow! Fascinating to see the wax flakes left behind.
We had two empty hives and a bait box set up, but the bees decided to fly back up over the trees to parts unknown. I hope they make it.
So sorry I’ve had a break from blogging this spring to have missed all your activities – but what a grand return! Your grand entrance for the grandkid’s hive is incredible as is the swarm! I’ve heard there’s been a record number of swarms this year, perhaps word has gotten out among the bees about your wonderful hives! 😉