SWARM!

We had an exciting swarm day at the apiary yesterday. You can see here that a swarm landed on the trunk of a small pear tree not far from the apiary.  Tuesday was the first sunny day after several days of rain and that it often when a colony intent on swarming will make its escape.

We lucked out with this one, since it wasn't high off the ground, making it somewhat easy to coax into a new hive box.







Below you can see the bees beginning to march into the box that Robert set beside the swarm.  We saw the queen (though not quickly enough to get a photo of her!), and once the bees could tell that the queen was in the box, they began to march in and take possession.

Here you can really see how the bees are beginning to march down from the trunk of the tree into the box.

Though dramatic to watch, swarms are not dangerous (even though they certainly can frighten people).  Honey bees in a swarm are intent upon finding a suitable home to relocate and are not inclined to sting.

A swarm is the way that honey bees reproduce their colonies.  The old queen from the mother colony leaves with the swarm--usually about 1/3 to 1/2 of the bees in the mother colony.  They leave behind several swarm cells where a new queen will emerge to carry on.

The photo on the right was taken about an hour after we saw the queen go into the box.  You can see here that there are no more bees on the pear tree trunk.  They've headed inside to get used to their new home.

Why and How Do Bees Swarm?

Swarming is the way that honeybees reproduce their colonies. It is, as Robert often says, a "blessed event" for them--like a birth. When they sense that their colony is strong enough to divide, they stop feeding the queen so that she will be light enough to fly. The old queen takes off with about one-third to one-half of the worker bees, leaving behind several developing queens in swarm cells.

A number of factors can trigger honeybees to begin making swarm preparations. One of the most common is congestion in the hive. If they sense that they're running out of room for the queen to lay eggs, they'll prepare to swarm.

Though a blessed event for honeybees, for beekeepers, a swarm means losing up to half the bees in a colony and so beekeepers try their best to manage swarms using a number of techniques. One way they try to prevent swarming is to be sure the colony has plenty of space. They will intersperse empty frames and add more supers (boxes) to the colony to add more room for the colony to grow. They will also make "artificial swarms" or "splits" to give the bees the impression that they have already swarmed. Here's a great YouTube video of how to make a split:

For more information about swarms, check out this link from the University of Nebraska's Department of Entomology.

Swarm Season!

May is the start of swarm season in Western Pennsylvania and Saturday was a busy day for swarms. Steve Repasky, in the photo above, captured this large swarm from a small tree in Wilkinsburg.

Swarms are dramatic to witness, yet don't deserve the fear they often evoke. Swarming bees rarely sting for a few reasons. One is that, before leaving the original hive, the worker bees engorge themselves with nectar so that they will have something to eat in their new home. Often, they're so full of nectar that they can't extend their stingers. Another reason they're unlikely to sting is that they do not (yet) have a hive to defend.

Local beekeeping organizations like the Beaver Valley Area Beekeepers' Association and Burgh Bees keep "swarm lists" of beekeepers who, like Steve, will try to recapture a swarm. In a future post, we'll write about why bees swarm in the first place.