Hi y'all,
this is my first post to this site, although I visited the beemaster webpage a few years back when I first got into the beekeeping thing.
As a backgrounder, I've pretty much gone this thing alone, got a few packages of nice golden Italians and have had a good crop from time to time. Managing "swarming" has been difficult, and this year I decided to not even mess with my hives, but to just place brood boxes with drawn frames around the property to hopefully catch any swarms. Well, low and behold, I did catch a swarm, only it does not appear to be from my bees, but instead from a very dark (almost black) bee....reminiscent of some feral bees I caught when I was a kid. My first thoughts were, "cool, my hive didn't swarm" and "cool, these bees may be mite resistant". Okay, now I'm open to suggestions....I assume I should first treat them, but then, should I requeen, or keep the dark (and different) bees, bless them with holy water, all of the above????
Reminder: any advice is news to me.
Thanks,
Your Oregon Beeman