Swarms 2023
2023 has been another busy year for us, in this post we’ve got pictures, and stories, from some of the 20 swarms/cut outs we safely rehomed this year.
Why Do Honeybees Swarm?
Swarming is a honeybee colony’s natural way of ‘reproducing’, essentially what happens is that once a colony fills its current hive (or any cavity they have taken up home in), as soon as they have run out of space in which to lay brood/store honey then they begin to make preparations to split in two.
The first step for a colony is to make a new queen (a honeybee colony only has one queen at a time), to make a queen the worker bees take an egg and place it within a specially-built, queen cell, and then feed it royal jelly, so it will develop into a queen bee, instead of a worker bee. Once the new queen cells are capped over, to allow the new queen to mature, the old queen then leaves with half the colony (the older half), this is a swarm. The other half of the colony stays in the hive and waits for the new queen to, hopefully, emerge and then continue as a standalone colony.
Swarms don’t always land in the most convenient of places. Picture one is in the middle of a busy delivery bay at a haulage firm, it was a very hot day and that metal was not a cool place to land. Picture two is a nuc box being used to recover a swarm from a school playground. Picture three is a swarm neatly tucked into a bush in the middle of a car parking area in a Leeds housing estate.
What Happens Once A Swarm Has Left Its Old Hive?
So, the old queen and her half of the colony (the older experienced fliers) have left the hive. They’ll usually set off on a nice calm sunny day, although bees never read the books! Before leaving the hive they will gorge themselves on honey to prepare for their journey. Once they leave they go on their ‘first flight’, they move as a loud black cloud moving in unison until they, or, most importantly, the queen, tires and will then land in any random spot. This random spot can be anywhere and is what you see above, mostly, the swarm will ball up in this spot whilst their house hunt begins. Seeing a swarm arrive is a fairly rare sight to behold, and something to be admired, with many beekeepers themselves never having the privilege of seeing a swarm arrive. A far more common sight is the brown clump of bees clutching to a surface once it has landed.
This is the crucial time to act, a colony in this state is easy to relocate and rehome with minimal harm to the colony or beekeeper. However, time is of the essence, as whilst in this balled-up state the scout bees are out on their house hunt looking for a suitable cavity to move into, bees desire a hollow structure with a small, defendable, entrance, this can be a beehive or a hollow tree trunk. But they are also frequently found within loft spaces, wall cavities, garden sheds and any hollow structure with a small entrance will be an option for them. Once they find a house they like they will move on mass to this new structure, this second flight is usually shorter and fixed on a specific target. Once bees have anchored to a new home they are infinitely more hard to relocate with risks to both the bees and the keeper. A fresh swarm that has yet to find a home is placid, they have all just had a big meal, a big flight and have nothing to protect so can be coaxed into a new hive with relatively simple persuasion (most of the time). A swarm that has just moved into a new home is usually hungry, as they don’t have many stores, and as such is fixated on protecting the home and the little stores they do have. Getting them out of the structure is often very damaging as you need to be able to access the whole cavity, so this can often involve big holes in walls/roofs/floors/ceilings, and considerable cost for specialist removers and subsequent remedial works. This is why it is vital if you find a swarm when it is clumped up you contact a local beekeeper as soon as possible.
Two more simple ‘cut-outs’, both these colonies had set up in unusually small containers, one in a water butt base and the other in an upturned plant pot.
A far more complex ‘cut-out’ we did from summer 2023, this colony had set up in a roof cavity above a bay window, they had clearly been there for some time given the quantity of comb they had built.
A Swarm To Remember:
Swarm of the year definitely has to go to the ladies pictured above (worker bees are all female, male drones don’t usually travel with a swarm). This was a swarm we were called to by Network Rail’s emergency response team, this swarm had decided to land in the unfortunate spot on the rail track alongside platform 12 at Leeds train station. Sadly before the swarm had been noticed it had been run over once by a train. Once noticed Network Rail immediately closed the line they were on, cordoned off the neighbouring platform, and called Leeds Beekeepers Association who then called us. In order for us to safely access the track the swarm was on, Network Rail closed 3 lines and suspended the use of 2 platforms, whilst we recovered the colony. I imagine this situation was fairly disruptive given it was a busy sunny Saturday afternoon. Thankfully the recovery went well, using our BeeVac to quickly move them into a Nuc box, safely out of harm’s way. Luckily, once they had settled into their new home, a few days later we looked through them and found a healthy queen, and the colony is still going strong!
