I caught a swarm!

I came home the other day and was walking around my property and into my orchard and noticed all the bees swirling around in the air and the hives. I realized that the bees had just left their hive and were about to settle somewhere and that was when I could catch them and rehive the whole cluster of bees.

When the queen decides to move, she lays some eggs in queen cells and when they are capped, she takes about half the bees and leaves the hive. They settle somewhere usually close by, and some bees go in search of a new home. I have found that when they settle I have about an hour maybe 2 to catch them.

So I prepared a nuc, a small hive to put them in. But when they settled on the ground in a chamisa bush, I just cut the branches and carried them to their new hive in the apiary.