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This time of year in the Southern Hemisphere is when swarm season begins in earnest, and it often continues through spring into late summer. A swarm is the natural division of a hive when they have grown out of their space.
At the height of her productivity, the queen can lay over 2,000 eggs a day and with the gestation from egg to adult bee at about 3 weeks, this means that there are constant new generations of worker bees filling up the hive and graduating through the many hive jobs over the course of their 5-7 week lifespan.
The queen is the unifying force of the colony and emits a number of powerful pheromones that communicate important functions to her hive. One of her primary pheromones is called the queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) which is emitted from her mandibular gland in her head. This is passed to her workers via the sharing of nectar and is spread through the hive to provide a sense of ‘oneness’. When the hive becomes very full of bees in the spring, the queens pheromone profile becomes weaker which signals the workers to rear a new queen so that the colony can divide. They will typically rear out 5-10 new queen cells and allow those to mature while they prepare to leave.
Just before the new queen cells are ready to emerge, the existing queen (who has fasted and now light enough to fly), leaves the hive with about half of the workers. This is a speedy event that looks much like a ton of bees spilling and skipping out of the hive entrance and creating a cloud of bees near the hive.
As much as this looks like chaos, it is really a highly intelligent and orchestrated event sensitive to weather and timing. These bees typically settle on a nearby landing site called a bivoac site, which is a safe haven where they can send out scout bees to search for the perfect permanent home. They will stay here for anywhere between a few hours to a few days.
Their decision making in choosing the new home is a democratic process in its finest! Bees that are swarming are commonly the most gentle they will ever be because they have no home to protect and they have filled their honey stomachs with nectar to fuel their journey, which means that they struggle to articulate their abdomen to sting.
It is important to call a beekeeper as early as possible when a swarm is spotted. Do not fear a swarm, they have important work to do! And of course, never ever spray a swarm with insecticides.
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