Swarming is natural but beekeepers try to stay a step ahead of swarming by splitting the colony and/or expanding the space (otherwise, the little honeymakers literally fly away). We figured we had plenty of time before the urge to expand would hit this crew. After all, this colony was brand new in June, got hammered by mites in December, lost its queen (perhaps to the mites) in January. We bought a new Carniolan queen but found the colony had already hatched their own (so the Carniolan is in a new start-up: hive #2).
There's a queen in the middle of this ball of bees. It looks fierce, but swarms are not typically aggressive. It was remarkably easy "filing" them away for transfer to a proper box. Yes, they're all in that box.
