Today, I got a swarm call from Marysville. The day was sunny and warm until mid afternoon, when rain started and lasted for the rest of the day. Consequently, the swarm found shelter under a shrub and stayed there until we arrived to the property, at around 6:30pm. We found a very small swarm, maybe 2 pounds max, almost at ground level. It was very easy to take it from the shrub and put it in a box, where it is resting now. During the operation, a bee stung me through my sock. This was my first sting. I felt a burning sensation at the sting, then the burn spread to the ankle, and within 10mn, it was gone. No swelling. I know now I am not allergic.
I will have to build 2 warres for this weekend.
This new swarm is for Kristen. Hopefully it will survive. The bees are darker than Italians. Some of them are completely dark, others are yellowish with dark stripes. Their queen (from the original colony, not the swarm queen) must have mated with different drones. This means it is at least a third generation queen (first generation, from a package, would have pure genetics, and second generation queen would swarm with first generation workers, all identical). A third generation queen sound really good. We will see how well this colony does.
We now have 7 colonies.
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