It is now officially swarm season for the bees, and Bees N Blooms adopted two swarms last weekend. A few weeks ago, we were approached by a neighbor who has several hives in his back yard, asking if we were interested in any swarms that might come from his hives. We said yes, indeed! And then, on a sunny day right before another rainstorm, he called to say that not just one, but TWO of the hives were swarming! They ended up landing in the same place, making what looked like one GIANT swarm. We divided it across two boxes, hoping we had a queen in each one, left the boxes until dark, then brought them home and installed them in the apiary at night. They were already building comb, happy in their new homes. We’ll check on them soon to see how they’ve settled in and what their queen status is.
Swarming is the bees’ method of reproduction—in a good year, a strong colony can produce several swarms. The first one—the “prime swarm”—is usually the largest, when about half the colony leaves with the old queen. Later swarms are called “afterswarms” and are typically smaller, with a newly hatched queen. For beekeepers, swarm season is a chance to obtain new colonies for the apiary. If you find a swarm hanging in a cluster of bees, you can often capture it by shaking or brushing the bees into an empty hive body, or even just a cardboard box. If you get the queen in the box, the rest of the bees will follow, and if you leave them until sunset, the scout bees will be back with the group (assuming they haven’t found a better home by then!). The colony can then be taken to the apiary and installed in a hive.
Swarming takes place when the bees decide to divide the current colony, a behavior generally triggered by overcrowding. As the colony grows, the worker bees will begin to prevent the queen from laying eggs and shake her regularly to “encourage” her to lose weight so she is able to fly when they are ready to leave the hive. They do allow her to lay eggs in specially prepared “queen cups”, which is where the new queen will be reared for the bees that stay behind.
Swarming usually happens on a sunny day in the spring or summer when nectar and pollen are abundant. The departing bees eat as much honey as they can hold (they may not be able to eat for a few days), then gather on the front of the hive and take off with the old queen in a tornado of bees, landing on a nearby tree or other object. People are often scared of swarms, thinking that all of those bees will try to sting them, but in fact, the opposite is true. They don’t have a hive to defend and are satiated with food, so they have no reason to be aggressive.
The bees rest in a cluster of bees while the scouts go out to find a suitable cavity for a new home. The scouts return to tell the cluster about their findings, using the “waggle dance” similar to the one they use to communicate about food resources to communicate to the rest of the bees what they found and how enthusiastic they are about the new space. Once the colony has consensus on a new home, the scouts crawl rapidly around the cluster of bees, shaking the other bees to get them warmed up and ready for flight. Led by the scouts, the bees take off in a mass flight toward the new home. This is a dangerous time for the colony—they need to find a home quickly and start building comb for the workers to have a place to store food and for the queen to begin laying eggs. They are vulnerable to weather, predators, and to losing their queen, without which they are unable to start a new colony. By giving them a home, the beekeeper can ensure the colony survives.
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Such an exciting time!