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What causes a swarm? What should you do if you spot a swarm of bees on your property or in nature?
Show Notes
Hey, Keith Ramsey with the garden supply company. I've got Jason here with me today. Many of you guys know Jason as our resident beekeeper, manages our bee department, and takes care of everything related to bees. With a little bit of help from me every once in a while. Jason talked the other day, and swarm season's right around the corner.
Jason, what causes a swarm as I
Bee Expert: I was going to say, swamp, this natural tendency is to make more bees as they grow in a colony or the cavity or space they're living in. Since that approaching, they will tend to outgrow that bee since that approaching and will naturally divide themselves, which means they'll cast out a queen and about a third to half of the existing bees in that colony.
And they'll relocate to another or try to leave [00:01:00] relocate to another location. If you see that, it's a great thing to see. Like in a cartoon, we, the cloud of bees coming through the sky. But when they land, they're going to land into groups all cluster together, usually on a branch or in a shrub or on a
Keith: fence post or something like that.
So the queen and the queen land on the branch first, and the bees go from what. 40-foot swarm to, kind of get smaller and smaller you all are until it's telling us they're
Bee Expert: attracted to the queen. So, when the bees swarm, many workers leave first, and they start to fly around. The activity inside the hive gets chaotic, and the other workers are forced to queen out with them.
They all fly up into a cloud or a group into this, in the sky, before flying back until they reach a spot where they can use all cluster together to rest and regroup before moving to their permanent home.
Keith: Everything about bees is interesting. It's like a non-stop learning curve.
But the old queen leaves, and she goes with all the old. The fun thing about that is [00:02:00] they know what they're doing. They know that the whole deal, and they've all got a position in the hive. And they go pop as much honey as they can too.
So they can start building wax and start collecting resources.
Bee Expert: Which in that whole process. So they'll engorge themselves with honey. They want to take as many resources with them to the new location. It takes a lot of energy to make wax and rebuild. They're reconstructing the whole.
So we're when they've done that, and they are in their resting group. They tend to be relatively docile when they've clustered on the branch. No need to be scared of them, really, as long as you're don't, I wouldn't recommend approaching them necessarily, but they're not going to leap off of where they are and come stinky or attack you.
They're in a resting mode. They don't have anything to protect. Home or brewed that they have to defend homeless bees, homeless B. So they're just looking they're in transition. Yep.
Keith: Migraine. So, the other thing that I've found interesting is that there are many feral bees left.
Bee Expert: No. When people talk about feral bees, it's [00:03:00] usually bees that a beekeeper has been managing or mismanaging, and they've either swarmed, or they've missed the swarm or the colony has left and relocated to another
Keith: spot.
But Winnie the Pooh tree. They aren't around because of mites, insect problems, or disease problems.
Bee Expert: So, these don't tend to live very long in nature. The honeybee is not native to North America in the first.
Keith: place. So they need management.
They need
Bee Expert: management. Absolutely. Because of pests that have been introduced over the years, mostly through commercial beekeeping practices. Have spread to all the bees, and without specific management, they will die. Yeah.
Keith: That has to be a bummer if you're a beekeeper. If your swarm leaves, it's they're breaking up with you.
Like we're out. Yep. You got one job, beekeeper.
Bee Expert: I'd wanted
Keith: this one since I had an older customer and it was keeping bees for a couple of years, and he came in, and he said, These girls don't even know when they got a good home. They kept flying on [00:04:00] him. Probably because of
Bee Expert: it couldn't be healthy bees.
I Healthy. Like I said, bees want
Keith: to make more bees. Yeah. So when the old bees and the old queen leaves. And the reason they leave is that they're knowledgeable and they know what they're doing, and they have the resources and the Queen fertile, and she can lay an egg the next day.
And she probably will lay an egg in an unfinished cell the next day. So to start that whole process again, you got a thousand bees at the hatch out of a hive and in a given day and a thousand bees that die every day. So she wants to lay a thousand eggs as fast as they can build those cells.
But the exciting thing about it is you've got an infertile queen in the high. And she's got to do a mating flight. She's got to become fertile start to lay eggs. So there's a 12 or 15-day process there. But she. She's born into a hive. That's already got eggs and all stages of brood that are hatching now.
So she's got a 10 to [00:05:00] 10 days before you see any blip in the process.
Bee Expert: And that is a healthy thing for them. They can prevent the disease from spreading throughout the colony when they do that. So if bees get sick, they may divide themselves. A lot of the sick bees end up leaving. What's left.
Can recover and
Keith: maintain. Yep. It's really important that if you see bees are in short supply, they're in significant decline because of insect problems insect issues. But if you see a swarm, they're not going to make it on their own in the wild. You mustn't spray them, don't spray them.
We've gone out to rescue bees, and somebody's standing there spraying them with unbelievable chemicals. But reach out to garden supply company. And if you're local, if you're not local, reach out to Facebook B group, the county, almost every county in America has a big.
But you reach out to one of those guys, and they'll put, they'll get the word out there [00:06:00] to the beekeepers that, that are available,
Bee Expert: the keepers want to catch these things, give them a home, and then take care of them. Sure, exactly.
Keith: And you mentioned that there's not that many feral bees left.
It's probably somebody's. If
Bee Expert: you see what
Keith: Yeah, it's going to be somebody hive. There's a mite that's been around for about ten years, and that's a big part of the problem with bees. And it's why the loss rate with bees has gone way up, even when they're managed.
But if they're not treated for. Ultimately those hives are just going to decline over 24 months. And it probably won't make it to, it may not make it a year, but it was not going to make it two years. So when you lose a high. In a tree, say, they'll leave the resources behind, and you may get another swarm that goes to that tree, but you don't, but isn't that high as died out.
And then another swarm moves in because the resources are already there. I grew up in the country, and I remember honeybees would get in people's houses and stuff like that, but I haven't heard of like a swarm and a deck. Yeah. We could have to send you pictures that they happen mainly in the [00:07:00] springtime this spring.
It's a mid-March through mid June is getting way late for swarms, but you see a few then April and May. And it's, and again, as Jason said, there it's the natural way that a beehive, they multiply, you end up with two points. They seem to like houses branches in cars.
Yeah. So my dad tells this story, and then it may be exaggerated. I don't know where he saw somebody that went into a house and they were cutting the bees out of the house. They found the queen. He said the guy put the queen in a cage, and he put it in the back seat of a Buick LeSabre. And the B's filed into the Buick LeSabre to be with the queen.
And that's what happens. That is the way this works. That's why there are so many forms and cars. And then he said that guy got in the car with a [00:08:00] pseudo. And proceeded to drive down the road. And he said the bees were flying after Victor. I bet. That's what happened in this situation. I'm looking at a Google picture of a beekeeper approaching a cop car.
That's been like completely swarm.
Bee Expert: the cop was probably like, yeah, we'll grab the queen.
Keith: We'll throw it in the back of the squad.
Bee Expert: I
Keith: I just want to know why there aren't any pictures or videos of what my dad saw. He's got a phone.
That is precisely the way it works, though. If you can find the queen and the queen to not necessarily easy to find and in a hive, but when you're doing cutouts like Jason was talking about, that's when I'm high, I've had swore. It's located itself into a house and a.
You've got to complicate it because that involves the construction and genetics. Do you guys charge if you've seen us warm on a branch, so we'll come to get a swarm that the cutouts are a lot more specialized? Jason used to [00:09:00] do a fair amount of them, but if you're typically partner with a carpenter.
And it's a thousand or $2,000 process could be $5,000 depending on, where they've gone in and what kind of woodwork you're coming that dealing with the structure.
Bee Expert: You don't want to damage somebody's house. You want to be real careful and be insured and
Keith: know what you're doing.
So it's, that's a, it's a more, it's a lot more complicated, but again, it's, that's worth saving those bees and getting them out of the house. The other part of that is if you were to spray them in the place, All the resources are still there and the holes potentially still there. And if the hole isn't there, they will find another hole because there's a boatload of honey in there and pollen.
So they'll, and they can smell like you've killed the queen in the house. They can smell where the queen that they can. They can sense where the queen is. She's given all Fairmont. Dead or alive for years, they can come. So for years, they'll come back to the location, and you'll have another swarm there and another swarm there.
So they need to be cut out, cleaned out, [00:10:00] primed, and then sealed up correctly. Then not have another swarm in that location. But, give us a shout. If you see us warm garden supply company and see any bees, your
Bee Expert: concern, you don't know what they are. They could be yellow jackets, Hornets. Let us know, and we'll figure it out.
Keith: take a picture, send it back.
Or reach out to a bee club. And or your county, they've usually got a list of people who'll pick up hives or swarms. I didn't know that they weren't local to our area and needed maintenance. It's like a., And like cattle raising come out, roaming around.
Do you, should, you should call whoever is missing. You should have somebody to pick them up.
Bee Expert: off. The not native to north and south America came across with
Keith: your European crumbs in
Bee Expert: Columbus and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
Keith: She'll need maintenance. They do all right until next time. Swing by and look at the hives at garden supply company and enjoy spring.
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What is In The Garden?
In the Garden with Keith Ramsey is a podcast aimed at helping you grow and maintain a beautiful and healthy garden and landscape.
Each podcast will focus on a new specific topic. Check back every two weeks for the latest episode!
Keith: Hey, Keith Ramsey
with garden supply company.
I've got Jason here with me today.
A lot of you guys know Jason as our
resident beekeeper manages manages
our bee department and takes care
of everything related to bees.
With a little bit of help
from me every once in a while.
Jason was, we were talking the
other day and swarm season's
right around the corner.
Jason what causes a swarm as I
Bee Expert: was going to say, swamp, these
natural tendency is to make more bees
as they're growing in a colony or in the
cavity or space that they're living in.
They will tend to outgrow that be since
that approaching and will naturally
divide themselves, which means they'll
cast out a queen and about a third to
half of the existing bees in that colony.
And they'll go relocate to another or try
to leave relocate to another location.
If you see that it's a great thing to see.
It's just like in a cartoon, we, the
cloud of bees coming through the sky.
But when they land, they're going to
land into group all cluster together,
usually on a branch or in a shrub or on a
Keith: fence post or something like that.
So the queen and the queen lands on the
branch first and the bees go from what.
40 foot swarm to, kinda just get
smaller and smaller y'all are
until it's telling us they're
Bee Expert: attracted to the queen.
So as when the bees swarm a bunch of
workers leave first and they start
to fly around the activity inside the
hive gets chaotic and they the other
workers forced to queen out with them.
They all fly up into a cloud
or into a group into this, in
the sky and fly back before.
Until they reach a spot where they can
all cluster together to rest and regroup
before they moved to their permanent home.
Keith: Everything about
bees is interesting.
It's like a non-stop learning curve.
But the the old queen leaves
and she leaves with all the old.
The fun thing about that is
they know what they're doing.
They know that the whole deal, and
they've all got a position in the hive.
And they go pop as much
honey, as they can to.
So they can start building wax and
start start collecting resources.
Bee Expert: Which in that whole process.
So they'll in Gorge themselves with honey.
They want to take as much resources
with them to the new location.
It takes a lot of energy to make wax and
to rebuild their reconstruct the whole.
So we're when they've done that and
they are in their resting group.
When they've clustered on the branch,
they tend to be rather docile.
No need to be scared of them,
really, as long as you're not don't,
I wouldn't recommend approaching
them necessarily, but they're not
going to just leap off of where they
are and come stinky or attack you.
They're in in a resting mode.
They don't have anything to protect.
Home or brewed that they have to
defend homeless bees, homeless B.
So they're just looking
they're in transition.
Yep.
Keith: Migraine.
So that, the other thing that
I've found interesting is that
there are many feral bees left.
Bee Expert: No.
When people talk about feral bees,
it's usually bees that a beekeeper
has been managing or mismanaging,
and they've either swarmed or they've
missed the swarm or the colony
has left and relocated to another
Keith: spot.
But Winnie the Pooh tree.
Aren't around because of mites
or different types of insect
problems or disease problems.
Bee Expert: So in nature these
don't tend to live very long.
The honeybee is not native
to north America in the first
Keith: place.
So they need management.
They need
Bee Expert: management.
Absolutely.
Because of pests that have been
introduced over the years, mostly
through commercial beekeeping practices.
Have, spread to all the bees and without
specific management they will die.
Yeah.
Keith: That's gotta be a bummer if
you're a beekeeper, if your swarm leaves,
it's they're breaking up with you.
Like we're out.
Yep.
You got one job beekeeper.
Bee Expert: I'd wanted
Keith: this one since I had an older
customer and it was keeping bees
for a couple of years and he came
in and he said, These girls don't
even know when they got a good home.
They kept flying on him.
Probably because of
Bee Expert: it couldn't be healthy bees.
I Healthy.
Like I said bees want
Keith: to just make more bees.
Yeah.
So when the old bees and
the old queen leaves.
And the reason they leave is because
they're knowledgeable and they know
what they're doing, and they have
the resources and the Queens fertile,
and she can lay an egg the next day.
And she probably will lay an egg in
a, in an unfinished cell the next day.
So to start that whole process again
you got a thousand bees at the hatch
out of a hive and in a given day and
a thousand bees that die every day.
So she wants to lay a thousand eggs
as fast as they can build those cells.
But the interesting thing about it is
you've got an infertile queen in the high.
And she's got to she's
got to do a mating flight.
She's got to become
fertile, start to lay eggs.
So there's a 12 or 15 day process there.
But she.
She's born into a hive.
That's already got eggs and all
stages of brood that are hatching now.
So she's got a 10 to 10 days, before
you see any blip in the process.
Bee Expert: And that actually is
a healthy thing for them when they
do that, they can actually prevent
disease spread throughout the colony.
So if bees get sick, they
may divide themselves.
A lot of the sick bees end up leaving.
What's left.
Can recover and
Keith: maintain.
Yep.
It's really important that if you
see a bees are in short supply,
they're in major decline because
of insect problems, insect issues.
But if you see a swarm, they're not going
to make it on their own in the wild.
It's important that you don't
spray them, don't spray them.
I've, we've gone out to rescue bees and
somebody's standing there spraying them
with chemicals which is unbelievable.
But reach out to garden supply company.
And if you're local if you're not
local reach out to, Facebook B
group, the county, almost every
county in America has a big.
But you reach out to one of those
guys and they'll put, they'll
get the word out there to the
beekeepers that, that are available,
Bee Expert: the keepers want to
catch these things and give them
a home and then take care of them.
Sure, exactly.
Keith: And you mentioned that there's
not that many feral bees left.
It's probably somebody's.
If
Bee Expert: you see what
Keith: yeah, it's going
to be somebody hive.
There's a mite that that's been
around for about 10 years and that's
a big part of the problem with bees.
And it's why the loss rate with bees has
gone way up, even when they're managed.
But if they're not treated for.
Ultimately that hives just
going to decline over 24 months.
And it probably won't make it to, it
may not make it a year, but it was not
going to make it two years kind of thing.
So when you lose a high.
In a tree, say, they'll leave the
resources behind and you may get another
swarm that goes to that tree, but you
don't, but isn't that high as died out.
And then another swarm moves in because
the resources are already there.
I grew up in the country and I remember
all the time honeybees would get in
people's houses and stuff like, but I
haven't heard of like a swarm and a deck.
Yeah.
We could we'll have to send you
pictures that this spring, they
happen mainly in the spring time.
It's a mid March through mid June is
getting way late for swarms, but you
see a few then April and may, it's just.
And it's, and again, like Jason
said, there it's the natural way
that a bee hive, they multiply,
you end up with two points.
They seem to like
houses, branches in cars.
Yeah.
So my dad tells this story and
then it may be exaggerated.
I don't know where he saw somebody
that went into a house and they were
cutting the bees out of the house.
They found the queen.
He said the guy put the queen
in a cage and he put it in the
back seat of a Buick LeSabre.
And the B's filed into the Buick
LeSabre to be with the queen.
And that's what happens.
That is the way this works.
That's why there's so many forms and cars.
And then he said that guy
got in the car with a pseudo.
And proceeded to drive down the road.
And he said the bees
were flying after Victor.
I bet.
That's what happened in this situation.
I'm looking at a Google picture of
a beekeeper approaching a cop car.
That's been like completely swarm
Bee Expert: the cop was probably
like, yeah, we'll just grab the queen.
Keith: We'll throw it in
the back of the squad.
Bee Expert: I
Keith: just want to know why there aren't
any pictures or videos of what my dad saw.
He's got a phone.
That is exactly the way it works though.
if you can find the queen and the
queen to not necessarily easy to find
and in a hive, but when you're doing
cutouts, like Jason was talking about
that's when I'm high, I've had swore.
It's located itself into a house and a.
You've got to actually complicate
complicated because that involves
construction and genetic, do you guys
charge if you've seen us warm on a
branch, so we'll come get a swarm that
the cutouts are a lot more specialized.
Jason used to do a fair amount
of them, but it you're typically
partner with a carpenter.
And it's a thousand or $2,000
process could be $5,000 depending
on, where they've gone in and what
kind of woodwork you're coming
that dealing with the structure.
Bee Expert: And you don't want to do
damage to somebody's house, right?
You want to be real
careful and be insured and
Keith: know what you're doing.
So it's, that's a, it's a more, it's
a lot more complicated but again,
it's, that's worth saving those bees
and getting them out of the house.
The other part of that is if you
were to spray 'em in the house, All
the resources are still there and
the holes potentially still there.
And if the hole isn't there, they're going
to find another hole because there's a
boatload of honey in there and pollen.
So they'll, and they can smell like
you've killed the queen in the house.
They can smell where
the queen that they can.
They can sense where the queen is.
She's given all Fairmont.
Dead or alive for years they can come.
So for years, they'll come back to
the location and you'll have another
swarm there and another swarm there.
So they really need to be cut out, cleaned
out, primed and then sealed up correctly.
Then not have another
swarm in that location.
But, give us a shout.
If you see us warm garden supply
company and see any bees, your
Bee Expert: concern, you
don't know what they are.
They could be yellow jackets, Hornets,
let us know, and we'll figure it out
Keith: and take a picture, send it back.
Or reach out to a bee club.
And or your county, they've usually
got a list of people that'll
pick up hives or pick up swarms.
I didn't know that they weren't
local to our area originally
and that they need maintenance.
It's like a.
And like cattle raising
come out, roaming around.
Do you, should, you should
call whoever is missing.
You should have somebody to pick them
Bee Expert: off.
The definitely not native to north
and south America came across with
Keith: your European crumbs in
Bee Expert: Columbus and stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Keith: She'll need maintenance.
They do all right until next time
swing by and take a look at the hives at
garden supply company and enjoy spring.