Normal Behavior?


Hi Everyone,

Noticed our bees seem to be moving out or have split. Per the image some bees have moved into the lemon tree next to our flowhive. They appear to be flying between the tree and hive. Is this normal? Any advice appreciated!

Hi there Paul, welcome to the forum. Your colony has swarmed, which is completely normal, reproductive behavior that bees do in spring and early summer. Splitting is what we as beekeepers do to preempt swarms.

You can easily collect this swarm - but they will need a new home. Can you get hold of another single deep setup? Or would you rather see if you can sell or give the swarm to someone?

Time is of the essence. Even if this is what is called a practice swarm, and they return to the original hive, they will ultimately swarm for real and be gone in a day or two. My choice in your shoes would be to have a new setup ready in a distant corner of the yard, with a frame of open brood from the original colony or at least one frame of drawn comb in the middle of the new frames. Then get a cardboard box big enough to hold the cluster, get suited up and shake the bees gently but firmly into the box. Carry the box to the new hive and slowly and gently pour them in. They will be disturbed at first of course, lots of them will be flying around, but they will soon organize onto the brood or drawn comb frame. If several of them start fanning with their hind ends raised, then you know you’ve got the queen in there :+1:

Now you need to inspect your original colony. It’s hard to tell but it looks in your pic like you have the super on. Remove it if so, because this colony is now queenless until further notice. You will need to look for more queen cells and potentially thin them out. I advise you to have a mentor with you when you do this inspection, because post-swarm management decisions are tough without experience.

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Thank you so much for the advice Eva, unfortunately I’m travelling for work however we have have someone that might be able to help today. I will report back!