This morning while I was hanging out some laundry (yeah, I know it's Sunday!!) I heard a loud buzzing sound and sure enough our hive on our porch roof was swarming. Bert came home from the farm where the corn was being planted and luckily for us the swarm was still on the outside of the hive (rather then up on a branch in a tree) and he just swept them into a new hive box and took it to the farm. So hopefully these "city" bees will adapt to country living!! And hopefully we have captured the Queen as well as the worker bees.
4 comments:
Why do they swarm? Is the roof hive too full or are there two or more queens and they just are a little competitive? They want all drone boyfreinds for themselves? Is there still a colony on the rooftop?
The roof hive was too full so they made another queen. It was also very mild early in the spring and they likely had a good start in making new bees resulting in a highly populated hive. We left the original colony on the rooftop since usually only half the bees leave in the swarm. They likely took some of the drone boyfriends with them since the queen isn't fertilized yet. She will fly out of the hive once settled (the only time in her life she leaves the hive) and high above the hive she will meet up with some drones (hopefully some from other hives as well for genetic diversity) and has several matings while up there (sex orgy). Then it's back into the hive (if some bird hasn't eaten her) for several years laying eggs she fertilizes from her various stocks of sperm.
And that's your biology lesson for the day!!
Thanks Marianne, indeed very interesting and instructive.
Fokke
That is really neat!
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