My bee swarm arrived before I was prepared

I've never had a hive and still don't but knew that I wanted to be a bee steward eventually. I encourage all the wildflowers that grow on our place and put out water for the bees that come from who knows where to visit the flowers. Learning more about bees has largely been put on hold as I'm busy digging to make my first buried hügelkultur and all the other tasks that need doing as we are just getting started with our homestead.

Today I noticed that a swarm of bees had gathered on the C-purlin to which our gutter is attached. This is about 22 feet east of our cabin since we have a metal roof overhang that extends our about 22 feet on the east and west and about 12 feet on the north and south sides. From the limited amount of learning I've done about bees, I'm thinking a top bar hive with observation window will work well for the bees and for me. The benefits I see with this type of hive is that the hive can be opened less often and the observation window will allow checking of the bees occasionally to know when the hive is getting too full and will need to be opened. I'll definitely be going treatment free. I'll be needing to provide shade for the bees since it gets quite hot out here in the desert. I'll also need to protect them from the wind since we have frequent strong winds that come from any direction.

I guess I'm about to get a crash course in bee-keeping and probably hive-making so hopefully I can provide a home for this swarm before they fly off.  OK, with that, I'm off to research on permies.com as well as the internet in general.

observation windows are fun, but have limited utility for hive management in my experience. that's mostly because you just can't see very far into a crowd of bees, so you can tell more by hefting a hive and observing entrance behavior than you can by peeking in a window. windows also complicate construction somewhat (or increase price if you're buying) and present some thermodynamic drawbacks, but neither of those are really bad enough that I would try to talk you out of it.

have fun. bees are a hoot.

The thing about swarms is they are usually very temporary. Could be there a couple of hours or perhaps a couple of days. When a scout returns from finding a suitable home they all leave for their new location. I suggest capturing them quickly & getting them into whatever type of hive you want to use.

Try not to feel bad, it happens. But take heart, there will be future swarms. I have a friend whose hive swarmed like five times in one season! She's a very successful beekeeper with very strong bee genetics, though

People take buckets and sweep the whole colony in there. When the queen is in, the remaining bees will follow the scent. Then they scoop the bucket in a ready empty bee hive which has already some wax and propolis in there to make the bees feel at home. If the queen decides to stay you've got them.
It's not easy, but well prepared it's doable, my friend scooped upto five colonies in one season, he gave one to me but they died because a badger opened the hive in winter. The swarming bees usually have wild genes, they're less tame and can be moody.

It appears a scout found a suitable home since the vast majority of the swarm is now gone. I'll still work at building some hives. I'm not sure if I'll build different types and let the bees decide which they prefer or just build several of the same type and place them different places on the property and let them choose the best location. I like the idea of using the actual hive to bait a swarm rather than using bait hives that then require moving the bees to the actual hive. Seems kinda rude to me to give the bees a "bait and switch". I'd like to observe (without disturbing of course) some local wild bees nesting in the wild to possibly learn from them what type of hive would best suit local bees. I've always wondered where the bees that visit us call home. Although I happen to have a couple food grade plastic barrels that could be used to quickly make hives, I am concerned that the plastic would not be healthy for the bees. I know I would not care to live in a plastic house. Maybe I could weave some dead yucca leaves into a sort of basket and then plaster with earth plaster. That would require minimal wood. Looks like I'll also need to understand enough of what the Texas "department of making you sad" has to say about beekeeping so hopefully I can avoid being made sad.

For various evolutionary purposes, bees prefer their hives to be elevated, and will be more likely to swarm into it if it is so. It's hard to do, I know, but it's something to think about. Matt Sommers in England put up 52 hives (strapped to trees) and 48 of them filled on their own, all in an area that had been thought to have few bees left. People are doing it here and also having great success. Something to think about.