May and June are such exciting months for the beekeeper. Colony growth is now running at top speed. Every time you open the hive there seems to be another two or three combs of brood. Each will hatch out 6,000-8,000 new bees within three weeks. At this time the brood chamber is filling in with larvae. So many plants are blooming now that the bees are packing combs with pollen and nectar.
Each day that the sun shines the new bees begin to fly for the first time. They fly in slowly increasing circles as they memorize the hive’s position relative to trees, bushes, buildings, etc. Most of these young bees come out at the same time in late morning and a growing cloud of bees slowly circles in front of the hive. Then they join the ranks of older bees in the pursuit of nectar and pollen.
It’s at this time when the hives that over-wintered best are now getting so strong that they start to think about reproduction or swarming. Swarming is when the queen bee along with up to half the worker bees leave the hive to set up a new colony. The colony prepares for this great event for two weeks prior to it taking place. First they build 20-30 special cells where they will raise new queen larvae. The colony will never swarm unless there is a new young queen about to hatch. In the days just prior to swarming, the queen bee will be run around the hive, to help her lose a little weight prior to her flight. Finally, just before the first of the young queens hatch, the reigning queen and 20,000-40,000 of her daughters fill up with food and take off in a large noisy cloud. They may fly only a few yards or up to half a mile and come to rest in a large, very impressive, group usually about the size of a basketball.
Meanwhile, back in the hive the first of the young queen bees to hatch from its cell will immediately seek out her unhatched sister queen bees and rip the cells open and sting her sisters to death. If two should hatch at the same time, they will fight to the death. Once the rest of her royal family has been wiped out, she will go on her mating flight, where she will mate with up to 40 drone bees. Each drone dies in the process of mating. Finally, after all this carnage, she settles down to lay perhaps a million eggs in the course of her lifetime.
Back at the swarm, scout bees report back to the cluster with news of various hollow trees, or spaces in walls and soffits of homes suitable for their new home. Though the swarm can look frightening, the bees, without a hive to defend and full of honey for their flight, are as gentle as bees get! More scouts will check out these locations until, one by one, they eliminate all but the final site. Then the cluster will once again take flight and move into their new home. This cluster phase may last for half an hour or up to three days, but it’s at this point where it’s most important that a beekeeper catches the swarm to house them before they decide to make their new hive in the walls of someone’s home. If you see a swarm, please don’t spray it or call an exterminator; instead, call a beekeeper. My contact details are at the footer of this column. You can also reach out to the Maine State Beekeepers Association at mainebeekeepers.org or contact the swarm hotline 619-4233. You will usually be contacted by a local beekeeper within minutes. If you are interested in learning more about swarms, swarm prevention, swarm traps and swarm catching, you can come to the Penobscot County Beekeepers Association meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 29, at Bangor Parks and Rec. You also can check details on the Facebook page of the same name.
As you are by now aware, I am very keen to see as many folks as possible plant bee-friendly gardens and minimize the use of herbicides and pesticides. So its great to be able to acknowledge the great work Keith and Samantha Burns are doing at Runamuk Acres in Anson. They are creating a place where the public can come to learn about pollinators with an education center complete with wildflower meadows, bee-pastures, native-bee nesting sites, walking paths and a picnic area. Check them out at runamukacres.com; the more farms that adopt some of these practices, the better.
On a less happy note, while I was away a few weeks ago, a big black bear turned over one of my more remote bee yards in Hampden. Though much of the equipment was salvageable, the bees were lost in the soaking rain which followed. No doubt in the next few weeks I will find a few swarms to stock these hives again!
Peter Cowin, aka The Bee Whisperer, is president of the Penobscot County Beekeepers Association. His activities include honey production, pollination services, beekeeping lessons, sales of bees and bee equipment and the removal of feral bee hives from homes and other structures. Check out “The Bee Whisperer” on Facebook, email petercowin@tds.net or call 299-6948.