Swarming Bees

Bee colonies will, if healthy, sooner or later outgrow their hive.

Beekeepers can accommodate their bees by adding supers, or extra levels to the bee hive boxes.  Another option is to split hives.  To split a hive, the queen is placed in a new hive, along with workers, some of her brood, and honey.  If the split is successful, a new queen will hatch from one of several special queen egg cells.

In nature, bees will swarm from a hive and congregate in a high place, such as a tree, while scouts look for an appropriate new home.

Our bees recently swarmed, in spite of our best efforts to keep them happy at home.

Luckily, we were able to catch most of the swarm, and set them up in a new hive!  And, no one was stung in the process.

Ryan and Sean collect the swarm from the top of a tree.

Just a few of the bees