Swarm Season

First, the good news: our 2 brand new hives are doing what they should be doing at this stage, drawing out comb, collecting nectar, bringing in pollen, and the Queens are starting to lay eggs.

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Queen Latifah (marked with white dot), observed 1 week after hiving. Note the freshly drawn white comb.

Now the bad news: Hive 1 (Queen Charlotte), our established hive that came through winter like a champ…well, a week ago this hive swarmed 🙁

Our web cam captured the moment of mass exodus, which is actually pretty amazing. It’s like rats from a sinking ship…

Which essentially means that at least half the bees, including the Queen, left the hive in search of a new home. It’s the honey bee’s way of reproducing at the colony level.   So in a way, it means the colony has been successful; it has grown in population size and stored honey to the point where it can split into 2 new colonies, one of which (the swarm) leaves to find a new home, and the second, containing the remaining bees in the hive which will raise a new Queen and continue in the original location.

Why do bee colonies swarm?

About a week before the swarm, the workers start to build special “queen cells”, in which the Queen lays an egg that will develop into a new Queen.

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