Swarm Season

Summer is the season of swarms: when large masses of bees appear on trees, fences, or buildings.

Swarming is a natural instinct in honeybees, and there are a few reasons why a hive may swarm. Unlike most native bees, European honeybees function as a superorganism, forming massive colonies holding tens of thousands of individuals at a time. Space can get pretty tight in the hive at numbers like that; when a honeybee colony senses it’s running out of room, the queen will gather half the worker bees and fly off to establish a new hive. She leaves behind plenty of eggs for the remaining workers to turn into queens, which they do by feeding the eggs royal jelly.

When swarming, the worker bees cluster around the queen while scouts search for a suitable new home. Most swarms are pretty docile—since they don’t have an established hive to protect, they aren’t as aggressive. In the wild, European honeybees tend to nest in tree cavities, protected by wind, rain, and predators. A swarm left out in the open won’t last long.

Once the swarm finds their next home, they'll begin building up their resources and population until the process repeats!

Want to watch us catch a swarm? Check out Beewitching Hour on YouTube.