Swarming Bees

A couple days ago I happened to be home for lunch a little later than usual when I noticed a lot of extra activity at the bee hive. There were more bees flying around than usual and then it just got crazy. They were pouring out of the hive like liquid. Before I knew it there were thousands of bees in the air and I thought I had just lost my whole hive to a swarm. They moved off as a cloud over to the neighbor's house where the neighbor came out because of the buzzing. It was just insane how many there were. Then as quickly as they exited the hive, they condensed to a tight ball hanging from a redwood branch about twenty feet up.

I went to work and then decided to see if I could catch the swarm so gave it a shot that evening. I had to climb up the redwood tree and tie a rope around the branch so that I could cut it and lower it. It kind of worked, or at least I thought it did. I was able to get the branch lowered and then most of the bees into a cardboard box with a frame. But then I noticed another bunch higher up. I think I had knocked the queen off when I lowered the branch and they just congregated in another place. So a couple days later they're still there. My neighbor, Yvette, brought over a deep super and placed some bee lure into it hoping that they'll move in. It hasn't worked so far but maybe they'll find and choose it before they move into someone's attic.