The Art Craft and Science of Beekeeping: Honey Bee Swarms, Part 1

Starting your first hive or expanding your current colony numbers? Just getting started in beekeeping?

One method of acquiring bees would be to capture a swarm. Although this may not be a guaranteed method of acquiring bees, it is one method that can be employed and is generally not too costly.

Understanding The Swarm

Generally honey bee swarm “season” is in the spring of the year.

What is a honey bee swarm? A swarm is reproduction at the colony level. It is a method for the bee colony to perpetuate the species as well as a disease control mechanism and a method of range expansion.

Colony population increases and triggers the colony to produce a new Queen. Then the old Queen will leave the hive and take a large population of worker bees with her. Just prior to the exit of the hive the bees will gorge themselves with honey. They will travel away from the hive and generally settle on some object such as a tree limb, bush, stop sign, house roof or some other place for a short period of time, prior to completing their journey to their new “home”. A cluster of bees hanging from one of these places would be a “swarm”.

Prior to casting out the swarm from the parent hive scouts have been out seeking suitable nest sites. Since honey bees are cavity dwellers they will seek out a cavity in a tree, old barrel, your house wall or any other suitable cavity.

Swarm season would depend upon your location, but in most areas it could be from late March through early July. There is an old adage that states “a swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay, a warm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon, a swarm of bees in July isn’t worth a fly”.  The later season swarm may not have enough time to build comb and store provisions to ensure food supplies for the winter months. 

Swarming activity begins when the length of daylight increases. When ample forage (both pollen and nectar) become more abundant the Queen then increases brood production (brood is the generic term for eggs, larvae and pupae). Pollen is a protein food for the bees and is necessary in order for the nurse bees to produce food to feed the developing larvae.

 A good  queen is capable of producing well over 1,000 eggs per day. When the egg /brood production peaks the hive may become overcrowded. This along with several other factors could trigger the colony to produce a swarm.  Older Queens tend to produce more swarms than younger Queens, and some colonies simply have a greater propensity to swarm than others. This is one reason I tend to re-Queen colonies in the fall of the year (late July through early September). The advantages are numerous such as good large populations of young healthy bees to take the colony through the winter season and young Queens tend not to swarm nearly as much their first spring.

What happens when a colony casts a swarm? A lot of things, but from a management perspective a beekeeper loses a lot of the workforce from the hive. As a hive manager/steward when I see a swarm from my own colonies I know that production is lost and in the event I am unable to capture that swarm, it is a real monetary loss as well.

Collecting swarms to stock your equipment is a viable option. Many beginners or even established beekeepers will advertise this service to the community. Non-beekeepers do not want the bees, so you would be offering the public an often wanted service. Interested beekeepers can often advertise this service by contacting  and volunteering their service to cooperative extension, master gardener,   police/sheriff offices or other places that could field calls from the public. Advertisements in the local newspapers or community sales publications or notices in the local farm/feed and hardware stores with your contact information can all work to inform the public.

In Part Two of this series tomorrow, I will discuss details on collecting swarms, so be sure to check back for the second installment of Honey Bee Swarms!