Swarm Season In Full Swing

When I first got a call last week saying that someone had bees in their wall I expected what I usually find, an established colony that was sending foragers out from honey comb they had build months or years earlier in the safety of someone’s wall bay. The homeowner sent me a few pictures and they had all the signs of a honey bees living their typical honey bee lives. I added her to the schedule and planned to come two days later to remove what I assumed was a typical colony that had just been established. I went about my day and a few hours later I received a text message from the homeowner. “They are all going inside!! They will all be gone soon inside my walls” She followed this up with a video that you can see on my Instagram here.

Scout bees confirming that this hole leads to a great spot for a new home

I immediately realized that she was not dealing with a run of the mill established hive becoming more noticeable in warmer months. She had caught a rare event on camera. A new swarm had just arrived and begun to set up shop inside the wall of her cottage! If you keep bees or frequent the websites and social media of bee keepers I am sure you have heard of bee swarms. I’ve discussed in earlier blog posts how swarms operate and what criteria honey bees use when choosing new homes but the short answer is that swarming is a way for honey bees to increase not only the number of bees in the world but the number of hives. A healthy honey bee nest will divide its self and the old queen along with nearly half the workers will set out to find a new home.

What had appeared to be the coming and going of forager bees was in face the coming and going of scouts who were reporting back to their sisters that they had found a great place to establish a new colony. Around 3:30 that afternoon they had taken to the wing and the swarm had landed on the side of the cottage and begun marching into the small hole created by a small spot of rot in the side of the T111 siding.

Tens of thousands of bees patiently waiting their turn to enter their new home

Two days later when I swung by to remove the bees I confirmed my suspicion that this was a brand new swarm. I opened up the wall and found they had built a small amount of pearlescent white comb in the last 48 hours. Honey bee hives that are well established develop comb that is brown, sometimes even black from the activity of tens of thousands of bees dirty from their work gathering pollen and nectar trapsing up and down the comb day in and day out. When I remove established colonies the depth of this color is often something I look at when gauging the age of said colony. This comb was immaculate and had not stood the test of time to become stained through hard insect labor.

Less than two day old honeycomb. Already carrying some dirt and pollen that will eventually stain it dark brown.

I scooped the bees out in handfuls and located the queen who contrasted the unusually white comb with an unusually dark body. Honey bees, and their queens in particular run the gamut from yellowish, to the orangy leather color most common among honey bees, to dark browns and blacks. This queen was a gorgeous jet black and had a large number of similarly dark offspring. Apis Mellifera no doubt, but about as dark a western honey bee as you can get.

The dark colored queen surrounded by her attendant daughters

I gave the colony the rest of the day to acclimate to a capture box before removing them to my apiary where they are now happily thriving.