Swarm of Bees

Swarm of bees in a tree in the yard, earlier this summer.  This is only the third time I have seen a swarm.  I got close to snap this picture, because I have heard that swarming bees are not aggressive.  If they noticed me, I couldn’t tell.

I looked up swarming bees on Wikipedia.  When a hive becomes large enough to make new queens,  the old Queen leaves with about 60% of the worker bees.  They spend a few days scouting out new locations for their hive.

I thought about trying to capture the swarm in a box, and starting my own apiary.  By the time I  worked up my courage, they had flown away.

4 Responses to Swarm of Bees

  1. Sean says:

    beautiful and amazing! Can you catch wild bees and ‘domesticate’ them?

  2. James says:

    I remember that dad actually did this on the farm when I was a kid. There was a huge swarm in one of the trees and he called someone who set us up with the apiary boxes.

    I remember there being chunks of honey comb around the kitchen from time to time, and there once being a dead bee in it.

  3. wsb says:

    What a great picture! Are you interested in keeping bees otherwise?

  4. curiousfarmer says:

    As James remembered from his childhood, I’m mainly interested in honeycomb. I don’t know the difference in domesticated vs. wild bees. I suspect these bees were from a hive in which the beekeeper failed to make his/her splits; taking some of the bees away before they ‘split’ on their own.

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