What exactly is a bee swarm? A swarm is defined as a dense group of insects. Consequently, swarming is a natural process in the life of a honey bee family group, which is known as a colony. A successful colony of honey bees includes three common types: workers, drone and a queen. Each type of bee plays an important role to maintain a successful colony and to allow for the reproduction of the bee species.
Many people wonder why bees swarm. Swarming occurs when a large group of honey bees flies away from an established colony to establish a new colony. During a prime swarm, the majority of the worker bees will exit the original hive with the old queen. A swarm can be populated by thousands to tens of thousands of bees and commonly occurs in the late spring and early summer.
The Swarm Event - After the preparation is complete, the swarm will begin. Upon the first emergence from the original hive, the swarm occurs nearby, usually at a branch or tree meters from the hive. This nearby location is not the permanent stop for the new nest, but rather an interim location for the cluster while scout bees scour for the new location. This process usually takes a few hours and the rest of the swarm clusters about the queen to protect her during her temporary stay. However, in rare instances, this process can take up to three days.
When the ideal location is selected, the swarm will fly to the new location and begin populating the new home. This group of bees is known as the "prime swarm." Meanwhile, at the original hive, the new queen will soon emerge and will kill her unborn sisters with the assistance of her worker bees.
Worker bees are female but are not capable of reproducing. They do all the work in the hive, and they control most of what goes on inside. Their jobs include housekeeping, feeding the queen, drones and larvae, collecting the pollen and nectar, and making the wax.
A drone is a male honey bee. Unlike the female worker bee, drones do not have stingers and gather neither nectar nor pollen. A drone's primary role is to mate with an unfertilized queen.
A queen bee is typically used to refer to an adult, mated female that lives in a honey bee colony or hive; she is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive. Queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature. There is normally only one adult, mated queen in a hive, in which case the bees will usually follow and fiercely protect her and die if needs be.
"We love to work with bees. Our team captures and relocates bee swarms. Next time you see a bee swarm call us and we will help them find a new home. We also have limited supplies of fresh local raw honey available for purchase.
Got a swarm or bee problem?
Give us a call and we will take care of it!
If you have a cluster and it needs to be removed, call The Bee Team. We are experienced beekeepers and can remove the clusters simply by brushing or shaking the bees gently into a cardboard box and carrying them away so you do not have to deal with them!
Several species of wasps can be beneficial to gardens as pollinators, but others can cause harm to homes and people. Wasp stings are painful for most and can cause anaphylactic shock in those that are allergic. That is why it is imperative to control wasp nests around and inside homes, apartments, and commercial buildings.
We love Bees, and our Beekeepers as well. From time to time we will have a small supply of locally harvested fresh raw honey for sale. This honey is of the highest quality and is delicious and comes from our personal bee hives.
Noticed our hive had a lot less bees than normal, a little investigation we found them!
Someones old kitchen cabinets next to their house made a perfect place for these bees to make a hive. We found that the bees had been busy, and productive!
212 Sarah Road, Kennewick, WA 99338
