Tree Bumbles and swarms of Honey Bees

By this time last year we had been inundated with requests to collect swarms of honey bees. This year there have been far fewer calls and, so far, only two have been for honey bees. The rest have been about 'swarms' of bumble bees.

As much as I'd love to be able to spend time talking to people about bumblebees and their lifecycle I'm afraid that I have other calls on my time, so I end up suggesting they look online for more information and, you never know, they may even end up here on my small apiary's blog so I thought it might be a good idea to add post that might help.

The most commonly reported bee is the Tree Bumble, Bombus hypnorum. This species was first recorded in Britain in 2001 and has since spread northwards at a remarkable rate. Here's a picture from the BWARS site.

A bad beekeeper delays a swarm

Bees are precious this year because too many colonies were lost during last winter and the cold, late, spring. Colonies that made it through aren't without problems.

Many local beekeepers are reporting that their 'last year's queen' has been superseded or has simply vanished - you will recall that last year was so wet that mating flights were few and far between, so mating was poor.

What have previously been easily-contained colonies of 'local bees' have been swarming. I have caught one swarm in my garden, have been called to collect a swarm in a garden adjacent to another local beekeeper - who is on holiday - but the swarm took off just before I arrived. That beekeeper had caught an earlier swarm just before going away.

This is mirrored within my small apiary. On the first inspection after I fortnight of cold weather I found one colony had lost their queen - there was no sign of either fresh brood or queen cells. One has been split, which I'll describe in another post. One of the colonies is currently superseding, but is continuing to build up rapidly so I need to keep a careful eye on it.

A swarm in May

On Sunday afternoon I was busy frame making. Yes, I know new frames should have been made up during the winter, but thanks to the constant rain of the previous several months the bee shed had been surrounded by a sea of mud and a moat, so was well nigh inaccessible until recently. I'd put the my workmate outside the shed - it's nicer to be outside on a rare sunny day - and was tapping away with my tack hammer when I spotted some movement in an old conifer about thirty yards away.

Swarm in conifer

Just above head height, glinting in the sun, was a lovely swarm. This is the first swarm to land in the small apiary in many years. Perhaps it was attracted to our bees but it's more likely they were lured by the lingering scent from a now vacant (and recently blocked with insect-proof mesh) long-standing feral colony's site. How the bees chose this particular tree is a mystery, but I am grateful they clustered in such an easy-to-reach spot, so could be quickly removed and marched straight into their new home.

I'm fairly confident that this swarm didn't come from any of my colonies. They are in large boxes; still have plenty of space; I haven't yet seen any swarm cells - and these bees are the wrong colour. So it looks as if either a local beekeeper (there are quite a few) has lost a swarm or one of the local feral colonies (there are quite a few) ran out of either food or space and decided to seek a new place to live.

A Swarm ... of Honey Bees

Is this a swarm?
If you're reading this page because you have discovered what you think is a swarm of honey bees in a tree, on a post, a car bumper or the outside of a building, you need to be sure it is swarm of honey bees. Check first by doing an image search and/or visiting the BBKA site, which has several pictures of swarms.

Is this a colony of Honey Bees?
If you have bees living in a building, a tree or in the ground then they might not be honey bees.

• Insects with yellow and black stripes and an almost hairless body, living in a papery-looking nest in a shed, an attic, or in a tree or hedge, are probably wasps or hornets (Vespa crabro - friendly giants).
• If the bees you can see are large and very hairy, maybe thumbnail sized and living in a bird box or a hole in the ground, they are more likely to be bumble bees.
• If there are only a few smallish bees, entering and leaving a pencil-sized entrance in a wall or a bank, they could be solitary bees - mason bees etc. (There are over 200 species of solitary bees in the British Isles).
• If the bees are not bumble bees, and there are a lot of smallish (little fingernail sized) bees coming and going through a hole of about an inch diameter (2.5cm) in a tree, in brickwork, near a window frame, in a roof or a chimney and some of them (not all of them) are arriving at the nest entrance carrying something yellow or orange (pollen or propolis) on their back legs, they could be honey bees.

Bumble bees and solitary bees are unlikely to sting. They will build up small colonies during a season, but do not make large permanent nests. Towards the end of their season, which may be July or August, the colony raises a number of fertile queens. These are the individual bees that overwinter, on their own. These not-honey-bees are unlikely to return to the same nest site the following year.

If you are sure you have honey bees, and would like them collected or removed you can find contact details your nearest swarm collector via the BBKA site, and on Honey Bee Swarm Collectors UK.

~'.'~

Swarming
Swarming is the honey bees' means of reproduction. Individual honey bees cannot go off and start a new colony on their own - they have to work together, have to stay together, and have to keep the queen healthy and safe from predators. Seeley calls a colony of bees a 'superorganism' - a single organism comprising many individuals, much the same principle as corals or sponges, with honeycomb being the framework of their home.

What is a swarm.
A swarm of honey bees contains a number of flying worker bees, drones, and a queen. She could be a newly-emerged, unmated, virgin queen or an older, mated queen.