If you encounter swarming bees, they are nothing to worry about. Their buzzing can be loud and frightening, but, particularly after they've emerged from their hive, they are quite gentle, so long as nothing threatens their queen. In this way, one over-populated hive becomes two sustainable colonies, something we are in desperate need of, since colonies of bees have died off in recent years in alarming numbers. The original hive still holds the recently hatched new queen bee, a small group of worker bees left behind to guard and care for the queen and the other young bees, and those young, who will replenish the supply of workers and drones. When the scout bees find a new home, the bees will fly to it and quickly move in to resume their normal hive activities. At times, this group can be as big as a basketball! Scout bees will fly off in all directions in search of a new home and will report back regularly. Much like during the winter, they will huddle together with the queen at their center to protect her. She and her worker bees will look for a place to rest nearby, often a tree branch. This behavior is known as swarming.īecause the queen does not often leave the hive, her wing muscles are weak and she likely won't be able to fly far from the hive. Then, she and the majority of her worker bees, who have stocked up on honey from their reserves, leave the hive to find a new place to nest. She lays a few more eggs, including one that will become a new queen for the hive. This triggers a response in the worker bees in charge of feeding the queen, who cut back on her diet. In late winter and through spring as the weather warms, the queen will begin repopulating the hive by laying more eggs.Īs a queen ages and as the population of the hive swells, it becomes harder for the bees to sense the queen's pheromones.
The worker bees shift places to keep the core temperature of the hive warm enough to support them, ranging from 80☏ near the queen to 45☏ at the outside of the group.
They consume the honey stored in their hive as food, and to keep warm, they rapidly contract their wing muscles, causing them to seem to shiver together. The remaining members of the colony huddle together in what's known as their winter cluster, a big mass of bees with the queen bee protected at its center. However, as cool weather sets in, bees conserve food rations by evicting the drones from the hive. As long as all the other bees in the hive can sense these pheromones, which are carried through the hive's food, the colony can lead a harmonious life.ĭuring the summer months, a healthy beehive contains 40,000–80,000 bees. There are three types of bees: female worker bees, who go out of the hive to collect nectar and pollen from plants for food and who care for and protect the hive and its residents male drones, who live in the hive to mate with the queen and the single queen bee herself, who lays eggs and emits pheromones, chemical scents that offer instructions to the rest of the bee hive about social behavior, mating, and maintenance of the hive. Honeybees live in groups called colonies in dwellings called hives and generally are pretty docile creatures. Most bees you see swarming are honeybees ( Apis mellifera). Those bees are swarming and the only thing they're hunting for is a new home. But there's no need to do any of those things. Your first instinct might be to run and hide, to swat at them, or to try and kill the bees. So might coming across a branch in the woods teeming with 20,000 bees. Ten thousand bees suddenly buzzing outside your house or flying around your playground may seem like a scary thing on an otherwise beautiful spring day.
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