In the spring of 2026, I was conducting my annual experiment on bait hives, with the goal of making them more attractive. Briefly, this was the setup: I had seven pairs of bait hives on our property, each consisting of a treatment and a control bait hive (see Figure 1). Early in the spring, days of premature summer heat occurred, followed by a hard freeze, and then swarming diminished.
Staying close to my bees can reveal unexpected events, aided by good fortune. I was out checking the experiment every day, watching for scout bees investigating bait hives. This episode was one of them, beginning with hearing a swarm leaving a hive.
On this morning before the launch of the swarm, no scout bees had been searching around my sheds with old hive equipment. Propolis on the woodenware warms in the early sunlight and attracts scout bees. Shading from late morning onward (avoiding excessive heat) keeps the scout bees around for the rest of the day. At the end of the shed, under my extended roof, scout bees were absent from a special bait hive that I use as an indicator of their presence. By a long track record, this site is often chosen by scout bees. Now with my experiment running, I leave large gaps in the hive, too large for entrances, causing a final rejection of the hive. I only want to know when novice scouts are out searching, alerting me a swarm is out. A swarm taking this hive, which is not in the experiment, is not what I want. Figure 2 shows one configuration of this bait hive at its optimal location.
I was not expecting a swarm that morning, when I heard it above the still leafless sumac trees, a dense growth of them. Although I could not see the swarm, its concentrated hum up high said enough. The hum seemed to be over the sumac trees that were directly in front of some hives (which were extra ones that I’d moved in to provide more swarms for the experiment). Running to the hum, I met the swarm cloud flying over the edge of the sumac trees, and mostly over the wide path providing truck access to the extra hives.
I did not want to disturb the swarm’s flight, so I let the bees finish leaving the parent colony. I knew full well that I could lose this valuable swarm. With climax stands of tall trees around our house, I usually never see the swarms at my home apiaries. More abstractly, I know of a swarm’s presence indirectly from their scout bees at various bait hives …
