Bee Swarms 101 By Jerry A. Chenault, Urban Regional Extension Agent, Lauderdale County

Bee swarms! Most people have probably never seen one. But for those who have, terror reigns! A bee swarm is simply a group of bees on the move from one home to another. Although they look and sound fierce, they are actually in a docile state. Why? The bees are homeless and have no honey to protect. Still, a large ball of homeless honeybees hanging from a tree limb, a lamp post, or anywhere else is not a peaceful sight to most people. What causes a swarm? Is it a bad thing? What should be done to prevent swarms? Let's see!

Bee swarms are about as natural an event as rain and wildflowers. Swarms are attempts at reproduction that honeybees instinctively carry out on a colony-level to increase their population. Sort of like a "divide and conquer" thing! When a swarm occurs, a queen bee will leave the nest and take about 66 percent of the hive's population with her. Depending on the strength of the colony, that means there could be as many as 41,000 bees swirling in the air! They eventually congregate on a branch (or some other object) and form a hanging cluster. The scout bees then go out and search for a more suitable home. Soon a hollow log or tree usually becomes their new domain.

But what happens to the bees that were left behind? Normally, a daughter queen inherits the colony, but the colony is small, weak, and less likely to yield any surplus honey for its owner that year. For the honeybee species, swarming is a good thing as it propagates their colonies. From a beekeeper's point of view, swarms are about as desirable as a toothache. Swarms normally occur in spring and early summer at the time when the bees should be busy making honey and reaching maximum population size. So, a swarm is definitely not good for beekeepers unless the beekeeper is collecting a horde of bees to house in their hives.

So, how can a beekeeper avoid a swarm? There are two things to remember: try to avoid congestion and poor ventilation. Adequate ventilation is provided by slightly propping open the outer cover or lid of the hive. Avoiding direct sun in the blazing hot summer also helps to keep them happy at home. Avoiding congestion while trying to yield a maximum population may seem like an impossible situation, but there is a solution. They just need a bigger house! One common method to building a bigger home is to add on honey "supers" that are extra empty hive boxes with frames for the bees as they fill up existing storage spaces. This is why we sometimes see really tall bee hives in the summer.

A third thing to remember is to keep young, strong queens. Replacing aging queens is one of the most important things a beekeeper can do to avoid a swarm. As the queen bee in a hive gets older, she produces less and less pheromone. Pheromone chemical odors are important signals to the other workers in the hive. If workers don't receive enough signal of the queen's presence through pheromone odors, they start raising new queen bees to take her place! Swarming is a definite part of this queen-raising process, and it's a headache most apiculturists try hard to avoid.

As Paul Harvey says, "Now you know the rest of the story" about bee swarms!

References
Deleplane, Keith S. (1996). Honey bees & beekeeping: A year in the life of an apiary (2nd ed.). Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press.

Tew, James E. (2004). Backyard beekeeping. Alabama Cooperative Extension System, ANR-135.

Blackiston, Howland. (2002). Beekeeping for dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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