Swarm!
5/14/07

By mid-morning the buzzing had become more of a hum. Bees where everywhere, thousands of them crowding the air behind the Elkhorn Slough Foundation trailer. Luckily John Kenney, ESF’s Farmland Manager, happens to keep bees in his spare time. We quickly called him in to give our new friends a “swarm” welcome.

John explained that honeybees swarm when their hives become overcrowded. This is their way of reproducing and expanding their territory as one hive divides into two or three. Splitting the hive is no small task. First they must grow themselves a new queen who leaves with up to half of the worker bees. This new swarm flies a short distance from the hive, and forms a clump on a tree branch or other similar object. These bees wait there while scout bees go off in search of a suitable place for their new hive. Beekeepers can intervene at this point by catching the swarm before they have a chance to settle on a new hive.

This is where we got to see John in action. As the bees behind the ESF trailer clumped on two branches of a lupine bush, John deftly placed a beehive box just underneath and dropped the swarm neatly inside. The bees quickly decided that they liked their new home, and began alerting their sisters (they’re all female) to come on in and set up shop. Early the next morning, with all the bees inside, they were moved to a new home.