New visitors at the house. They are beeing well behived.

Found this in a small tree I planted in my back yard. Rainy and cold and I am guessing they are enroute to some new home. Never seen this before.

Today half the colony is on the ground and the other still in the tree. Wondering if I should be doing something with the temps going into the upper 30s tonight.

That is really neat .I have only ever seen bees swarm twice.Once in a tree in my dads yard, We were a little worried when they moved to the open attic over the porch.. By 9 am the next morning they were gone though. Another time 3 of us were stripping shingles on a roof job, and we heard a buzzing sound It was just like the movies. The sky was full of bees .Thinking that maybe we had hit the motherland of all bees all three of us ran off the roof to the truck.Lucky for us we were only 1 story up, lol. Turned out that they were just doing a fly-by nobody was stung .

I went ahead and constructed an african style hive. It is the long version, shaped like a feeding trough. I scooped up the ones that had fallen onto the ground and put them in the hive the first night. The next night about 2/3 of that group were on the walls of the hive. I added about 1/3 of what was still on the tree via a small shovel. Next night I got all but the last 15% or so into the hive. Two days later the bees were back in the ball shape inside the hive, so I know the queen is in there. Today it is about 60 and the activity in and out of the hive is pretty heavy. Maybe they will stay. Time will tell.

Yes, top bar. It is 42 inches long, about 16 wide, 18 deep. The limited time I Ihad to research it led me to place a few 1.375" wide slats in the front to be used for brood. and the remaining are 1.625". There is a triangular strip of pine attached to each slat that is 1/4 inch more narrow than the slat. I will get some follow up pics when I attach the legs and set the hive, hopefully tonight.

This exact same phenominon happened to my one buddy from work last week. They were clustered up in a ball on a branch above his driveway, there were so many of them that the branch nearly snapped off. He called a local beekeeper who was supposed to come and get them. Not sure how he made out, I'll have to find out on Monday.

I had the same thing happen in a tree above my driveway. Noticed them one day, about the size of a soccer ball, and the next day they were gone. I googled "bee ball" and found that honey bees form swarms like this to kill off there enemies (hornets). Apparently, they "cook" them by forming the ball around them. Google "bee ball" and see the results.

MyWay, I can't WAIT to see more photos. I love honeybees, they are wonderful insects. If you have a garden you will be amazed. Also, they will not sting unless they feel that they or the hive is in danger, so you can work in your garden or yard while they are buzzing happily around you. Congratulations on your new brood (we hope)!

Also, you might want to give them a little sugar syrup to get them started, just make sure the other critters don't get to it first.

I believe I would wet myself if I saw that in a tree behind my house.

Just wanted to update this deal. The temps have been touching areas where the bugs are starting to fly around now. I decided it was time to remove the tarp that I had put around the hive in order to help hold heat inside it. I noticed the lack of buzzing in the area and upon opening the hive, found the place was vacant. No dead bees of any concern level, just a couple dried up carcasses. I am wondering if the chainsaw running in the immediate vicinity all winter had anything to do with the abandonment.

Nice thing is they left me with quite a bit of honey. Of the 26 or so bars, there was honey in about 12 of them. Three had quite a bit. I cut away the empty comb and pressed the honey filled comb as a harvest method. No need to leave comb for an empty hive. Looks like a take of 5-6 quarts of honey. Cool seeing the different color honey and different flavored honeys that came from different combs. I took all the bars with the propolis and comb ends back to the hive and put everything back together. The hive is hoisted back up into the poplar tree and is attracting visitors as I type. There were a couple honeybees investigating the place before it was secured in position. Maybe some returning for the gold, or some looking for a new place to spend a summer.