Cottage Q&A
QUESTIONOne afternoon last July, a very large swarm of what I think were bees flew by my cottage and attached themselves to a nearby tree branch. They stayed for three days, buzzing the whole time and looking quite?busy. Then they flew off as suddenly as they arrived. What were they up to?
ANSWER
From your description of their behaviour, there's not much doubt these are feral honey bees, recently escaped from a cultivated hive, says Louise Dumouchel, an entomologist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Beekeepers routinely let their colonies grow, then "hive off" a group and start a new one, in order to increase honey production. But if a hive gets too overcrowded before the beekeeper can divide it, a group of bees may take off on its own. Usually, it's the old queen who leaves, and a swarm of worker bees will follow her, Dumouchel says. Among the bees left behind, there will be a number of recently hatched young queen bee candidates. One of these will be chosen as the queen and the hive will carry on. Meanwhile, the intrepid explorer group needs to find new quarters, and your neighbourhood must have looked promising. The bees flew to your tree and hung out there in a swarm while their scouts went off to find a suitable cavity for nesting. Since they left as suddenly as they arrived, Dumouchel says it's likely a scout came back with good news and led them off to their new home.
* Published in the July/August 2003 issue of Cottage Life
