Yesterday, out by the barn I noticed a pronounced humming in the air. The sound got louder and louder as I followed it to the chicken coop. I could not see where the buzz was coming from.
Finally, I looked up. Perched high up in the branches of the oak tree some 30 feet above the coop door was a big clump of honey bees! I haven't had a chance to check our hives yet, but most likely it is one of our colonies!
We witnessed a swarm only one other time. I wrote about that in a previous post here. That one was easy to catch because they clumped in the apple tree, and we cut the branch and plopped them in a new hive box and fed them.
This swarm may have to take its course with nature. No way I'm climbing up to the top of that tree! Maybe this swarm is getting ready to take over the coop, or the doghouse down below. If that happens, I'll know what to do. In the meantime, we wait. They cannot hang there forever. They need to be in a protected space with honey stored up for winter or else they'll starve.
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