Yesterday (22nd July) morning I received a phone call about a bee swarm in a local garden. The swarm was in a holly bush right next to the path to the front door of the house and the owners have young children so not collecting it wasn’t really an option, but I’m now left with a debate over what to do with it. It seems very late to allow them to try to consolidate a new colony in time for the winter, so perhaps I should just dispose of the queen and combine them with another colony, though it was quite a large swarm.
I’m genuinely surprised to see one this late in the year. I imagine they’ve been waiting for some time for an opportunity to leave the parent colony, unable to do so because of the poor weather.
I think I’ll give them a couple of weeks to see if the queen starts laying and then make a judgement about how to combine them.