Bee Knowledgeable Answers: Swarming

What do you think a swarm of bees are? Why does a colony swarm?

Swarming is a natural way for bees to split their colony and reproduce.  When a colony of bees gets too large for its hive, usually in Spring to early Summer, the colony will decide to swarm. The workers will start rearing new queens in queen cells. The old queen will leave the hive behind, taking some drones and half her workers with her. Swarms can have 1500 to 30,000 bees!

Queens lay thousands of eggs in a day and colonies can build to greater and greater numbers very quickly when lots of food sources are available. The bees can reach a point that the hive is too crowded. It becomes harder for the workers to maintain the proper hive temperature. The bees will decide it is time to swarm.

The swarm leaves the hive and begins searching for a new home. Swarms will temporarily rest in the strangest of places. They’ll hang from a tree or hang off the back of a lounge chair, or just about anywhere.  While the swarm is resting, scout bees will venture out to search for a new home. The swarm may move again in a few hours or a few days, but it will keep moving until the bees have found the right place.

Swarms of bees are less likely to sting than established colonies. A swarm has no brood or stores of food yet to defend. Bees sting to defend their homes, their babies, their food, and each other. Left alone, a swarm shouldn’t bother anyone.

Eventually the scout bees will return successful and tell the swarm where the new possible is located by doing the waggle dance. The swarm then goes and inspects the new hive location. The swarm will decide whether the location is suitable or not. If it is not, they will keep traveling and looking. If the location is right for a good hive, the bees will start emitting a “home pheromone” which has a lemony smell.

Immediately worker bees will start cleaning and building new comb. They will even ‘measure’ the space by forming chains of bees from one side of the space to the other. The swarm has settled into their new home and is now considered a colony with a hive of their own.

What has happened to the original hive, you ask. They have no queen anymore and half their workers have left! Well, the worker bees left behind will move eggs into larger than normal sized cells, called queen cells. They look very much like a peanut. When that egg hatches, it will be fed only a very special diet of royal jelly. Royal jelly is a special substance made only by the nurse bees who take care of the brood, or baby bees.

Being fed only royal jelly during her development, the larva will pupate and a queen bee will hatch. Usually the bees have moved several eggs into queen cells and so have several queens developing at once.

The queen that hatches first will find the other queen cells and sting the other queens through the walls of their cells. If more than one queen bee hatches at the same time, the queens will fight to the death. The strongest queen will survive to be the mother of the colony.

So swarming is the way a bee colony makes a brand new bee colony. It is a completely natural process. Healthy colonies can even swarm several times during a season.

If you see a swarm, it is best to just leave it alone. It will move on, either within hours or a few days. Otherwise, call a local beekeeper to remove and relocate it.

So what does a swarm of bees look like? What do bee hives look like if the bees are wild and not kept in beekeeper’s hive boxes? Take a look at these photos to see for yourself!

Here is a swarm of bees in an oak tree:

photo: sandersj89

Here are a couple of photos showing some comb that swarm of bees were busy working on:

photos: sandersj89



Here is comb being built by swarms establishing a hive: 

photo: GoldenDropsFarm.com

photo: Reed Booth

And look at this wild hive built by bees:

 

photo: Geoff Kipps-Bolton

Bee Knowledgeable Questions: Swarming

It’s Swarm Season!

Spring is officially here in the northern hemisphere of the world, and nature is waking up from winter’s cold. All the plants and animals that have been hibernating or have been dormant during the long cold of winter are sending green shoots towards the sun, shaking out their fur, and stretching out wings.

The first flowers of the season have opened their faces to the light and warmth. What does this mean for the bees? It means a fresh source of nectar and pollen. It means the colony is active again and can grow and thrive.

What do you think a swarm of bees are? Why does a colony swarm? See if you can find the answers this week!

Help Save The Bees of Our World

You are starting to understand how important bees are to us all. Their role in the pollination of our food supply is crucial to human survival on this planet.
You also know that bees are disappearing at an alarming rate. The problem is critical, whether the cause is pesticides and herbicides, mites, viruses, or the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder.
So what can the average person do? No matter who you are, where you live, or your age, there is plenty that you can do to help save our pollinating insect friends

1) One of the first things you can do is simply bee aware of bees and other insects around you. Avoid killing them out of fear. Bees generally want nothing to do with humans. They only really notice us when we accidentally get in their way, smell like a flower (or enemy), or attack them.

If you are standing in a bee’s flight path, one might accidentally fly right into you. If you are near a swarm or hive, bees may come to check you out. Swatting at bees makes them think you are attacking them. Avoid wild movements or running if you have a close encounter with bees. It is best to stay calm and slowly walk away. They will quickly lose interest as you retreat.

2) Avoid using pesticides and herbicides and encourage others to avoid using them as well. Even if they are not used while bees are active, these chemicals will get into the nectar and pollen of plants with deadly consequences. Even ‘natural’ chemicals like pyrethrins can have a deadly effect on bees.

Instead opt to use organic gardening techniques and buy organic food, which is grown without deadly chemicals, where possible.

3) Plant pollen- and nectar-rich plants and flowers in your yard, your garden... all over. Check with your local agriculture department to find which plants that bees like grow well in your area. Try to stick with native plants and wildflowers. You can also contact the agency that runs your local parks and encourage them to plant bee-friendly flora.

Some of the plants that bees like are flowering herbs, mints, flowering vegetables, sunflowers (and flowers that have a similar shape and appearance). Also, any of the species of Salvia, Allium, and plants of the Asteraceae family are good food sources for bees.

Try visiting http://www.nwf.org/backyardwildlifehabitat/nativeplants.cfm for a list of plants native to your area.

4) Go wild and let your garden or lawn be a little messy, a bit overgrown. Bees love those dandelions in your lawn. Let some plants in your vegetable and herb gardens go to flower. Some overgrowth or ‘wilderness’ in your garden provides food and shelter for all kinds of bees.

5) Prove a water source for bees. Along with nectar and pollen, bees need water to drink, to cool their hive, to survive. Did you know that to cool the hive in summer, bees gather droplets of water and place them around the hive and then fan their wings to create a swamp cooler effect? Keep a birdbath full of water, or a bowl or pan set on or into the ground.

6) Protect swarms by calling a local authority or beekeeper to come move any swarms you see or know about. If you or someone you know has a hive of bees, do not exterminate them or try to drive them off. Call a beekeeper so the colony can be removed safely. If the bees are in an area out of the way, simply leave them be.

7) Buy local honey from local beekeepers. This not only helps support your local beekeeper, it can also be a health benefit. Local honey has local pollens in it, and eating it is said do wonders for your allergies.

8) Educate yourself about bees. They are fascinating and beautiful creatures. Learn more about them and then spread your knowledge. Educate others around you. Man is probably the bee’s biggest enemy, and helping people learn more about them dispels the fears and ignorance that leads to unnecessary destruction.

9) Provide a space for a beehive. Often beekeepers in urban areas do not have enough space for all their hives and would be grateful if you allowed them to put a hive or two in a corner of your yard or garden. The beekeeper does all the tending of bees and you get some of the honey and the most productive garden on the block.

10) Become a beekeeper yourself. Beekeeping is a rewarding hobby and we need more beekeepers everywhere. If you think you would like to be a beekeeper, look up your local beekeepers association and attend a meeting. They can help you get started.

These are just a few ways you can help save the bees. What other ways can you think of to help?

At the Boojum Bee Yard: March

The Boojum Bees have grown!

This week Kurt Merrill, generational beekeeper and the executive director of the Boojum Institute, captured two recently-swarmed colonies. We hived the colonies, putting the captured bees into a box hive with frames, pollen, and syrup to entice them to stay.

The first swarm Kurt calls the "Swimmer Swarm", because he had to "swim" through a bunch of attic insulation to get to them. He couldn't wear his veil because it was too big, he would not have fit. So he vacuumed these bees with the special "bee-vac" without a protective veil! He didn't get stung though.

This approximately 4 pound swarm was about a week old. The girls had hung 5 hand sized pieces of comb from the room of this attic and the queen had laid them full with eggs already!

photo: Kurt Merrill

The swarm was put into a hive body with frames, a feeder (with sugar syrup) and a pollen patty.

photo: Kurt Merrill

Enjoying their new home:

photo: Kurt Merrill

The second swarm had settled into a cardboard TV box. He used a mesh tarp to wrap around the box to haul it off.

photo: Kurt Merrill

Opening the bottom of the nest:

photo: Kurt Merrill

Exposing the top of the hive. In this picture, Kurt has already cut out about 20 pounds of honey and half of the comb and bees:

photo: Kurt Merrill

The comb was cut out to be salvaged and then placed into a hive body. There was no brood (baby bees) but several caped queen cells were present, meaning that they had most likely recently swarmed.

 photo: Kurt Merrill

The empty box, a small nuc (center) with the honey I remove, and a hive body with most of the bees and come of the comb. It is hard to see but there were many hundreds of bees in the air.

photo: Kurt Merrill

I am not sure if this hive had a queen or not. I found these three queen cells (they are the cells that look like peanuts) in the hive. I pressed the comb into a frame of comb and placed it in the hive. If there is a queen - she will open these cells up and kill them. If not, one of them will hatch, kill the other two and assume her throne.

photo: Kurt Merrill

Close-up of the queen cells:

photo: Kurt Merrill

Taking to their new home:

photo: Kurt Merrill

People always ask me "how you tell the difference between the boys and the girls". The drones are circled in this picture. They are larger, have square back ends (with no stinger) and much larger eyes.

 photo: Kurt Merrill

Bee Knowledgeable Answers: Bee Talk

Bees buzz around, but do they talk? Not with words and voices like we humans do. So how do they know which flowers have the most nectar and how to locate them from their hive? How do threatened bees tell others to come help defend their home? Honeybees may not speak as we do, but they do have other methods or forms of communicating.

1) What strange behavior do honeybee’s use to communicate or talk to each other? What is it commonly called?
Honeybees dance to communicate to each other! Commonly called the “Waggle Dance”, it is a specific series of movements that bees use to tell each other where to find the food source.

Scout bees fly from the colony in search of good pollen and nectar sources. When one finds some food-rich flowers, she flies back to the hive to tell all about it. She walks up onto a comb with the other workers gathered around her and begins her dance. She runs a precise pattern that tells the others the direction, distance, and even how plentiful the flowers are.

First she runs a straight line, the turns left and circles back around to where she started. She runs the line again and then turns right, circling back around to her starting point. She may repeat this figure-8 pattern up to 100 times.

If the food is more than 300 feet away, she waggles her body as she runs. The line she runs tells exactly where the food is in relation to the sun. Her waggles tell how far away the food is. The forager bees then follow her directions and fly off to gather the pollen and nectar.
Check out this video to see a waggle dance:

2) What is another major method of communication? Can you list an example?
Honeybees also use odors to communicate. Bees can put off a certain smell, called a pheromone, and it has a specific meaning to the other bees. Pheromones are chemicals made by animals to send signals or messages. Many animals use pheromones, even humans. Honeybees have one of the most complex set of pheromones used in the animal kingdom. They have fifteen different glands used for making these chemicals. Bees receive the chemical message, or “smell” the pheromones, with their antennae.

For example, if the hive is being attacked by an animal, guard bees release an alarm pheromone when they sting the attacker that smells like bananas. As soon as other bees smell that particular pheromone, they come help defend the hive.

Honeybees use these smells to communicate many different messages within the hive. A new hive is marked with a lemon scented pheromone. The queen has her own pheromone that tells the colony she is alive and “all is well”, and another pheromone is released which keeps the queen’s attendant bees nearby.

Scout bees bring back the smells of the various flowers they have visited. It is believed that the scent of the flowers is a vital part of the waggle dance as well. The dance tells the physical coordinates and the smell tells which flowers to look for.

Honeybees also use taste. A scout bee will share the nectar she gathered with other bees. This tells them the quality of the food source as well as exactly what kind of flower the food came from. This may also be important to honeybees to decide which patch of flowers should be foraged.

Bee Knowledgeable Questions: Bee Talk

Sure, bees buzz around, but do they talk? Not with words and voices like we do. So how do they know which flowers have the most nectar and how to get to them from their hive? How do threatened bees tell others to come help defend their home? Honeybees may not speak like humans, but they do have other methods or ways of communicating.

1) What strange behavior do honeybee’s use to communicate or talk to each other? What is it commonly called?

2) What is another major method of communication? Can you give an example?