Would a swarm of honeybees (non africanized) move into an already occupied swarm trap?!
I found myself asking this question earlier this month as I watched scout bees checking out 2 swarm traps we had on our property at the time. The thing is that one of those traps already HAD honeybee occupants (from a swarm that was caught about 1 week prior). So, I asked the question... would they move into an occupied swarm trap? The answer (as I was soon to find out) is apparently, YES! They will, at least under certain conditions, move into a swarm trap that is already occupied by another colony. Who knew?! (Well, maybe some of you already knew, but I did not!)
Let me go back a little bit to that 3rd swarm that came a week before this event. We have our swarms labelled with letters for this year, so this was swarm "C" and they came right around the same time as swarm "B" but they were a bit smaller in size. These traps were located in the same area (which is where we have our bee yard). We have usually moved swarms 3-5 miles away from where they are caught for a week before bringing them back to reset their orientation and make sure they stay put in the apiary.
However, we wanted to try something new and move them only a few feet from where they originally swarmed. We know the 3 feet or 3 miles rule, but the apiary is about 50 feet from where the swarm trap was located and we had heard that other beekeepers had success with moving their colonies in the range between 3 feet and 3 miles by essentially changing the scenery directly in front of the hive entrance using grass, sticks, etc. So this is what we did with C (we moved B all the way back to our house 5 miles away since we didn't want to run this experiment on both new swarms).
As it turned out (for us), this only partially worked... about half the colony stayed put, while the other half went back to their original location (where we had already placed another swarm trap). The queen was still in the original box at the new location, so we removed the trap where the queen-less half was and brought it back to our house to help them reorient and hopefully merge them back with the other half of their colony.
That was the plan, but nothing ever goes according to plan, does it?
That brings us to June 1... The queen-less half of C had only been at the house for about 2 days. Swarm B was happily reoriented and established just a few feet away. C looked a little lost and unsure what to do. They spent their first day reorienting and their second day looked much the same (though less intense). They were without their queen for about a week at this point and now they didn't recognize where they were. What could they do?
That same day we noticed a few scout bees checking out another (empty) swarm trap we have set up at the house. They were in and out and seemed really interested, but we've also seen that before and not caught a swarm. Later in the day, we noticed that the activity around C's box looked different and had increased in intensity and I asked the question... "Would a swarm move into an already occupied (though queen-less) swarm trap?"
While I was doing the research (and getting the kids ready for bath), we got a text from our neighbor that there was a huge swarm and it looked to be heading toward us! So we go outside and find that they are absolutely covering C's box and marching right inside.
I guess that answered that question... YES, they will definitely move into an already occupied hive.
Which begged a different question... this is kind of an aggressive move, right? What does that mean for the temperament of this particular colony?
In the time they were at the house, I did notice (compared to B, who was doing very well) that they are an exceptionally active colony with a lot of energy, but they were never aggressive with us. When we moved them to their permanent location (as colony D now), we weighed the box and they had gained over 4 lbs in 5 days! They had no issues with transferring to the bigger hive and were never once aggressive.
So, we came to the conclusion that in this circumstance, it was a win-win for both groups of bees and that if they were truly wanting to have a head start, they could have tried moving in on B (who had more resources), but they didn't. I think the particulars of C being queen-less, but having some resources was attractive to the swarm and they didn't have to fight for it. They are still a very active hive and are doing extremely well!
If you want to see the video, here it is:
What a day that was!