Swarm Season - Wild Bees and what to do if you see them

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

Episode Transcript

Keith (00:15):
Hey, Keith Ramsey with garden supply company.
I've got Jason here with me today.
A lot of you guys know Jason as ourresident beekeeper manages manages
our bee department and takes careof everything related to bees.
With a little bit of helpfrom me every once in a while.
Jason was, we were talking theother day and swarm season's
right around the corner.
Jason what causes a swarm as I

Bee Expert (00:37):
was going to say, swamp, these natural tendency is to make more bees
as they're growing in a colony or in thecavity or space that they're living in.
They will tend to outgrow that be sincethat approaching and will naturally
divide themselves, which means they'llcast out a queen and about a third to
half of the existing bees in that colony.
And they'll go relocate to another or tryto leave relocate to another location.

(01:01):
If you see that it's a great thing to see.
It's just like in a cartoon, we, thecloud of bees coming through the sky.
But when they land, they're going toland into group all cluster together,
usually on a branch or in a shrub or on a

Keith (01:12):
fence post or something like that.
So the queen and the queen lands on thebranch first and the bees go from what.
40 foot swarm to, kinda just getsmaller and smaller y'all are
until it's telling us they're

Bee Expert (01:24):
attracted to the queen.
So as when the bees swarm a bunch ofworkers leave first and they start
to fly around the activity inside thehive gets chaotic and they the other
workers forced to queen out with them.
They all fly up into a cloudor into a group into this, in
the sky and fly back before.
Until they reach a spot where they canall cluster together to rest and regroup

(01:47):
before they moved to their permanent home.

Keith (01:49):
Everything about bees is interesting.
It's like a non-stop learning curve.
But the the old queen leavesand she leaves with all the old.
The fun thing about that isthey know what they're doing.
They know that the whole deal, andthey've all got a position in the hive.
And they go pop as muchhoney, as they can to.
So they can start building wax andstart start collecting resources.

Bee Expert (02:13):
Which in that whole process.
So they'll in Gorge themselves with honey.
They want to take as much resourceswith them to the new location.
It takes a lot of energy to make wax andto rebuild their reconstruct the whole.
So we're when they've done that andthey 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,

(02:33):
I wouldn't recommend approachingthem necessarily, but they're not
going to just leap off of where theyare 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 todefend homeless bees, homeless B.
So they're just lookingthey're in transition.
Yep.

Keith (02:49):
Migraine.
So that, the other thing thatI've found interesting is that
there are many feral bees left.

Bee Expert (02:58):
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 colonyhas left and relocated to another

Keith (03:08):
spot.
But Winnie the Pooh tree.
Aren't around because of mitesor different types of insect
problems or disease problems.

Bee Expert (03:17):
So in nature these don't tend to live very long.
The honeybee is not nativeto north America in the first

Keith (03:25):
place.
So they need management.
They need

Bee Expert (03:27):
management.
Absolutely.
Because of pests that have beenintroduced over the years, mostly
through commercial beekeeping practices.
Have, spread to all the bees and withoutspecific management they will die.
Yeah.

Keith (03:42):
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 (03:50):
I'd wanted

Keith (03:50):
this one since I had an older customer and it was keeping bees
for a couple of years and he camein 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 (04:01):
it couldn't be healthy bees.
I Healthy.
Like I said bees want

Keith (04:03):
to just make more bees.
Yeah.
So when the old bees andthe old queen leaves.
And the reason they leave is becausethey're knowledgeable and they know
what they're doing, and they havethe resources and the Queens fertile,
and she can lay an egg the next day.
And she probably will lay an egg ina, in an unfinished cell the next day.
So to start that whole process againyou got a thousand bees at the hatch

(04:26):
out of a hive and in a given day anda thousand bees that die every day.
So she wants to lay a thousand eggsas fast as they can build those cells.
But the interesting thing about it isyou've got an infertile queen in the high.
And she's got to she'sgot to do a mating flight.
She's got to becomefertile, start to lay eggs.

(04:46):
So there's a 12 or 15 day process there.
But she.
She's born into a hive.
That's already got eggs and allstages of brood that are hatching now.
So she's got a 10 to 10 days, beforeyou see any blip in the process.

Bee Expert (05:03):
And that actually is a healthy thing for them when they
do that, they can actually preventdisease spread throughout the colony.
So if bees get sick, theymay divide themselves.
A lot of the sick bees end up leaving.
What's left.
Can recover and

Keith (05:19):
maintain.
Yep.
It's really important that if yousee a bees are in short supply,
they're in major decline becauseof insect problems, insect issues.
But if you see a swarm, they're not goingto make it on their own in the wild.
It's important that you don'tspray them, don't spray them.
I've, we've gone out to rescue bees andsomebody's standing there spraying them

(05:42):
with chemicals which is unbelievable.
But reach out to garden supply company.
And if you're local if you're notlocal reach out to, Facebook B
group, the county, almost everycounty in America has a big.
But you reach out to one of thoseguys and they'll put, they'll
get the word out there to thebeekeepers that, that are available,

Bee Expert (06:02):
the keepers want to catch these things and give them
a home and then take care of them.
Sure, exactly.

Keith (06:06):
And you mentioned that there's not that many feral bees left.
It's probably somebody's.
If

Bee Expert (06:11):
you see what

Keith (06:11):
yeah, it's going to be somebody hive.
There's a mite that that's beenaround for about 10 years and that's
a big part of the problem with bees.
And it's why the loss rate with bees hasgone way up, even when they're managed.
But if they're not treated for.
Ultimately that hives justgoing to decline over 24 months.
And it probably won't make it to, itmay not make it a year, but it was not

(06:32):
going to make it two years kind of thing.
So when you lose a high.
In a tree, say, they'll leave theresources behind and you may get another
swarm that goes to that tree, but youdon't, but isn't that high as died out.
And then another swarm moves in becausethe resources are already there.
I grew up in the country and I rememberall the time honeybees would get in
people's houses and stuff like, but Ihaven't heard of like a swarm and a deck.

(06:55):
Yeah.
We could we'll have to send youpictures that this spring, they
happen mainly in the spring time.
It's a mid March through mid June isgetting way late for swarms, but you
see a few then April and may, it's just.
And it's, and again, like Jasonsaid, there it's the natural way
that a bee hive, they multiply,you end up with two points.

(07:19):
They seem to likehouses, branches in cars.
Yeah.
So my dad tells this story andthen it may be exaggerated.
I don't know where he saw somebodythat went into a house and they were
cutting the bees out of the house.
They found the queen.
He said the guy put the queenin a cage and he put it in the

(07:40):
back seat of a Buick LeSabre.
And the B's filed into the BuickLeSabre 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 guygot in the car with a pseudo.

(08:00):
And proceeded to drive down the road.
And he said the beeswere flying after Victor.
I bet.
That's what happened in this situation.
I'm looking at a Google picture ofa beekeeper approaching a cop car.
That's been like completely swarm

Bee Expert (08:15):
the cop was probably like, yeah, we'll just grab the queen.

Keith (08:18):
We'll throw it in the back of the squad.

Bee Expert (08:23):
I

Keith (08:23):
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 thequeen to not necessarily easy to find
and in a hive, but when you're doingcutouts, like Jason was talking about
that's when I'm high, I've had swore.
It's located itself into a house and a.

(08:46):
You've got to actually complicatecomplicated because that involves
construction and genetic, do you guyscharge if you've seen us warm on a
branch, so we'll come get a swarm thatthe cutouts are a lot more specialized.
Jason used to do a fair amountof them, but it you're typically
partner with a carpenter.
And it's a thousand or $2,000process could be $5,000 depending

(09:08):
on, where they've gone in and whatkind of woodwork you're coming
that dealing with the structure.

Bee Expert (09:12):
And you don't want to do damage to somebody's house, right?
You want to be realcareful and be insured and

Keith (09:18):
know what you're doing.
So it's, that's a, it's a more, it'sa lot more complicated but again,
it's, that's worth saving those beesand getting them out of the house.
The other part of that is if youwere to spray 'em in the house, All
the resources are still there andthe holes potentially still there.
And if the hole isn't there, they're goingto find another hole because there's a
boatload of honey in there and pollen.

(09:40):
So they'll, and they can smell likeyou've killed the queen in the house.
They can smell wherethe 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 tothe location and you'll have another
swarm there and another swarm there.
So they really need to be cut out, cleanedout, primed and then sealed up correctly.

(10:02):
Then not have anotherswarm in that location.
But, give us a shout.
If you see us warm garden supplycompany and see any bees, your

Bee Expert (10:10):
concern, you don't know what they are.
They could be yellow jackets, Hornets,let us know, and we'll figure it out

Keith (10:14):
and take a picture, send it back.
Or reach out to a bee club.
And or your county, they've usuallygot a list of people that'll
pick up hives or pick up swarms.
I didn't know that they weren'tlocal to our area originally
and that they need maintenance.
It's like a.
And like cattle raisingcome out, roaming around.
Do you, should, you shouldcall whoever is missing.

(10:35):
You should have somebody to pick them

Bee Expert (10:37):
off.
The definitely not native to northand south America came across with

Keith (10:41):
your European crumbs in

Bee Expert (10:43):
Columbus and stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Keith (10:46):
She'll need maintenance.
They do all right until next timeswing by and take a look at the hives at
garden supply company and enjoy spring.