More Bees

Winter was really hard on a lot of honeybee hives, both wild and domesticated.  The swarm which took up residence in our locust tree last spring flourished all summer with lots of activity and a big population.  We never did see them send a swarm out which seemed kind of odd.  Maybe we missed it.  In any case we saw some housecleaning activity during one brief winter warm up but nothing when spring really arrived.  Sadly, they apparently perished.

Through the spring and early summer we'd see a few bees checking out the tree but nobody actually living there.  Some bees might have been neighbors who were robbing anything useful out of the old hive.  And they must have made note of the vacated area because yesterday we got this.....

 

Except for a little milling around the bees were all streaming into the tree.  BIG swarm.

 

Looks like we're back to taking a wide berth around the tree with the lawn mowing equipment.