May 12th, 2020

Bee Swarm

Spring weather is swarm season and this year is swarming! What do you think of when you hear a swarm of bees? Well I can tell you it is a cool sight to see it happening. Bees are everywhere, landing in different directions, then when the queen lands somewhere, the bees follow her. The hive that she left is now left with only half the amount of bees and queen cells to raise a new queen. This is the way bees make more colonies and propagate. When they settle down with the queen, they look like a large clump on a tree branch. These bees are homeless, nothing to defend, filled to the gills with honey, so usually they are most docile the first few days. When they can’t find a home and are still clumped together, they will start to get a little cranky but they are still manageable to catch. This hive here was up in a pine tree for a few days. I had this beehive which I baited, and the first nice day, they flew right to it. They wanted this home! So far so good, the queen has not started laying yet, might be a virgin so i will check later in the week.