We’ve had a few call outs over the past few weeks for swarms, two of which have been in Cranbrook
Swarming is a natural even for bees – it’s their way of reproducing. When the weather is right, and the bees feel its the right time, they raise a few of their baby bees as queens. They do this by selecting some eggs and feeding the emerging larvae with ‘royal jelly’. These bees then grow into queens.
When the larva are not far off from hatching as full grown queens, around half of the bees fly off with the old queen to find a new nesting site. Having flown off as a swarm, they cluster somewhere not too far from the original hive, whilst scout bees head off looking for a great new home. Within a day or two, they have hopefully found their new home, and fly off to settle in.
Sometimes this new home isn’t a great location, such as a post box, chimney or compost bin. You also sometimes get poor weather which can wash out the swarm, killing the bees. As such, it’s best if when a swarm settles in a cluster it is collected by a bee keeper and placed in a suitable hive, where they can hopefully flourish.
This Spring we have collected two swarms from Cranbrook, one from Silverton, and one from Exmouth. The video below is a recent collection from Cranbrook.
