The bee swarm

We know that a bee community normally lives in a hive. Unless it is swarming.  It is then called a bee swarm.

A bee swarm occurs when too many bees are born in one hive. The worker bees then produce a new queen themselves.  When this new queen is born, she can’t live together with the old queen in one hive.  For this reason the old queen will leave the hive with part of the bees.This is called “swarming”.

This is not a good thing for the beekeeper, as he threatens to lose part of his bees.  He will therefore try to follow the swarm.

 A swarm of bees looks for a new home and in the mean time they settle on a tree, in a hole in the wall or under a roof. We can then see a black cloud of bees producing a special buzzing sound. If the beekeeper is aware of the swarm in time, he can catch it in an empty hive.  In this manner he does not lose any bees.  On the contrary, if he can catch the swarm, he can put it in a new hive and thus has one community more than before.