The painters were out working on the house when one of them called me to tell me the bees had swarmed. Toby raced home to find this:
They had landed on our out house and were looking for a new home. So, Toby pulled out an extra hive box and put a little lemongrass essential oil (which attracts them) in it. Then he brushed them into a bucket and shook them into the box. They seem to be settling in well. Guess we’d better keep watch on the other hive in case they are gearing up to swarm too.
tabitha just had the same thing happen yesterday!
Full moon.
So why do bees sometimes swarm? Just curious.
It’s their way of reproducing hives. In the spring, when they are getting too big for their hive, they produce another queen. The older queen takes some of the hive and they swarm off to find a new home. The new queen then takes over the old hive. So both hives now have more room to expand. In the wild, they might just make a bigger hive, if they have the space. But in the hive boxes, they get crowded more easily. If we had wanted, we could have broken open the queen cells (where the new queen was growing) and just put more hive boxes on top of the hive to give them more room. But, even then, they might still have tried to swarm (but they won’t swarm unless they know a new queen is about to hatch.) So, now we have a new hive (but the new and old hive are now smaller, so they will produce less honey this year).
Oh my Dog! That would scare me a lot to see that big swarm!
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