Are swarming bees aggressive?

Are swarming bees aggressive is a vital question to consider. Scroll down for the signs that a person who has been stung should be immediately taken to the emergency room.

A cloud of swarming bees is the easiest way to increase the size of your apiary. For the smaller-home three colonies is a good number; those having a larger piece of ground, with borders of thick bushes protecting the neighbours might enjoy more.

Simply place a box containing the scent of bees on your roof in the swarming season; you will first find scouts checking out your inviting trap-nest and then with luck the whole colony will arrive within a few days.

Reviewed by Derek A. Lewis, beekeeper.

Introduction

Reproduction in the honeybee lifecycle occurs in two ways. During a honey flow there's natural growth within the hive as the queen starts laying more eggs. An increased number of workers are needed to collect their food; nectar and pollen which are their carbohydrate, protein and some fat.

Bees in nature only eat pollen and raw honey for carbohydrate; it is quite different to the supermarket stuff.

Take a blinded test if you do not believe me, comparing the fragrance and taste of raw versus processed honey; remove the lid off the bottle and first have a sniff.

And the sweetening of our food is best done with raw honey; in moderation like all simple and refined carbohydrate.

• Glycemic index raw honey
  

This page was last updated by Bernard Preston on 3rd June, 2024.

But secondly it is an opportunity to spread the species, not unlike Columbus sailing out into the unknown. And that is done via swarming bees; a new queen is bred and just before she hatches, the old lady and half the colony move out on a warm sunny day in search of a new home.

Several days before the bees swarm, scouts go out into the neighbourhood looking for a suitable hive site. When you see them moseying about a shed, under the eaves or in a pile of boxes then there is a possibility that a new colony will be arriving on the next hot, sunny day.

Are swarming bees aggressive? Not usually initially but if disturbed anything can happen.

You notice a build up of workers sussing out the chosen site, cleaning out any debris and getting Buckingham Palace ready for Her Majesty. Suddenly, there is a loud droning sound and the sky is filled with tiny flying black dots. Slowly the bees congregate on the box and landing all around, in this case on the brick wall.

Queen Bee is somewhere there but you are unlikely to see her; she's a little larger than the rest but very shy and they keep her well out of view. She is the only female in the hive that can lay fertile eggs.

Within a few days the organised beekeeper will make sure that he puts frames with wax into their new home. They often build diagonally across the hive otherwise.

Back in the old hive usually half a dozen queens are near to hatching. They start to make a loud trumpeting sound from within the still-sealed cells.

That is the message for the old lady; get out, or you'll be attacked and most likely killed by the first young virgin queen to hatch, unencumbered by literally millions of fertile eggs in her abdomen.

In the honey flow, a queen can lay up to 2000 eggs per day. She is no match for the young virgin. So she leaves, taking half the swarm.

Are swarming bees aggressive?

Are swarming bees aggressive? This is one of nature's miracles; a wonder to behold but comes with dangers. It is also a golden opportunity to acquire a new hive.

Around any beekeeper's house there are invariably half a dozen empty hives. They smell of honeycomb and propolis; the perfect place for a new home.

Watch closely and you'll see the bees scuttling in.

These bees arrive mostly during a honey-flow; or if their old home has been destroyed for one reason or another. At this time, an organised beekeeper will make sure old boxes like these are full of the frames that hold the wax.

This wasn't honey-flow season and this beekeeper was not prepared. Those boxes are quite empty without any frames. Now I have work to do to hive them properly.

Worst is if you do nothing for a few weeks; they are certain to build diagonally across the frames making a nightmare.

Ten minutes later there's hardly a bee in sight. The whole swarm has vanished inside. Immediately they will set about building new comb and within a day the queen will lay the first eggs; within three weeks they will start hatching and the future of the colony is assured.

If she is a strong, young queen the growth will be exponential and within a few months there'll be the first bottle of surplus honey for the beekeeper. It could be you.

One of the mysteries is that they gather far more nectar than they need for their own consumption. In fact to such an extent that the hive may become "honey-bound." They stuff it in every single cell so there is no room for the queen to lay her eggs.

There is only one way to alleviate the problem; the bees vacate the hive and swarm.

Trap nests and swarming

Bees have evolved to produce a new queen when the existing lady gets old or when the hive is overflowing with bees; they run out of room. In the wild most nests are of a fixed size, so needing extra space often happens during nectar-flows.

Catching one of these often gets the beekeeper a virile young queen able to lay 2000 eggs a day, so the colony produces lots of honey. 

The worker cycle is 21 days from egg-laying to hatching so she needs room for nearly 50,000 larvae in all stages. Add in a day or so for cleaning before laying; that means she requires almost 10 frames of broodcomb at her peak.

The watchful keeper tries to prevent swarming by adding space as needed and harvesting any honey so they are not driven to leave but to go and get more nectar. As you can see, one hive in the picture has 4 supers and a lot of bees outside the box.

Clipping the wings of the queen to stop swarming is an exercise in futility; you are condemning the swarm to become weak with an aging monarch unable to lay enough eggs.

This is a strong swarm from which keeper Derek Lewis harvested most of the honey and the next flow from Brazilian Pepper in Florida has just begun. This hive alone has produced over 50 lbs this year, and he is hoping for at least that much again very soon.

One of the beauties of keeping in USA, is that the bees are mild-mannered so heavy, full gear is not essential. His shorts have ties at the knees so they don't crawl up and mostly he only gets stung if he touches a bee accidentally.

Exploitation

The word exploitation has both a positive and a negative connotation.

• The use of something in order to get an advantage from it. 
• The act of using someone unfairly for your own advantage.
  

Here are four contentious examples.

1. We exploit the gentle nature and intelligence of Labradors as the perfect animals to be used for guiding the blind. In exchange the handicapped person cares for the dog.
2. The ruthless exploitation of whales for their blubber almost led to their complete extinction.
3. The Amazon forests are being exploited to plant soya beans to keep up with the demand of the world for vegetable protein.
4. Honeybees are being exploited to pollinate the almonds in California to provide nut-protein for vegans.
   

I leave it to you to decide just where the keeper and his or her bees fit into this complex situation.

Three reasons why bees swarm

1. The old queen is worn out and simply is not able to produce her quota of eggs. They may just kill her when the young virgins are about to hatch.

2. The hive is too small; often they will produce multiple swarms of bees, each with a relatively young queen.

3.  The hive is not suitable. Perhaps winter has arrived and a fire is being lit in the chimney; or it is wet in the rainy season, and so on.

At the end of the season the bees may go into hibernation in a very cold climate; the keeper makes sure they have enough stores to bide them over the winter. In spring they will be ready to take off again. Feeding kept bees may be misinterpreted by the uninformed; the intention is not that they should store the sugar solution; it can never be a substitute for natural honey. 

For us oddly the low season is midsummer but there are enough flowers to keep them ticking over. Then just before the start of the new honeyflow we feed the bees to stimulate the queen to start laying a few weeks earlier than she normally would in anticipation of the fat year to come.

Fat and lean years, they are part of life.

Other bees

Nature is wonderful in providing us with many other bees than the more familiar ones I am breeding. We need them all.

All these bees are affected by the indiscriminate spraying of insecticides, loss of their natural habitat and the planting of monocultures.

Are swarming bees dangerous?

When a bee stings you, the organ is ripped out of its abdomen and it dies. Occasionally one might get a warning prick and both you and the insect are lucky enough that the barb doesn't become embedded in your flesh.

A bee stinger can inject a large volume of the toxin, up to 50 micrograms so it's best to immediately use a knife-blade to scrape it off the skin; or a long fingernail. Pulsating muscles can be seen pumping more of the venom into the wound.

Yes it's best to assume that swarming bees can be dangerous.

But do not grasp the stinger between the fingers as you'll squeeze more of the venom into your body.

The main component is a protein called melittin^[1]. It destroys cell-membranes and blood corpuscles; and activates pain receptors, releasing histamine. Inflammation and swelling soon follow.

Other components are various enzymes like hyaluronidase; they drop the blood pressure, inhibit coagulation and also attack cell-membranes. You may feel faint.

There are according to Professor Jamie Ellis from University of Florida over 50 different compounds in the venom, many not well understood.

Other bees are attracted by the scent of the venom, meaning you are likely to get stung many more times if you hang around. Ducking through bushes is the best way to escape the avenging cloud; are we robbing or harvesting their honey?

It is quite normal for the site of the bee sting to swell and be very painful; however if a reaction begins at a distant place, say hives on the skin around the abdomen, or at the throat then it's best to get to the emergency rooms immediately. An allergic reaction called anaphylactic shock can kill within a very short time.

Roughly 1% of people are allergic to bee stings but everyone experiences pain and local swelling.

Second only to a vicious creature called a human-being, they kill more people than any other animal. Horses are third in line. It's best to assume that swarming bees are aggressive.

Schmidt in his book, The hive and honey bee, lists the following reactions to stings.

At stage 5 one should immediately get the victim to the emergency rooms; you have no idea whether it will progress to 6 or not. Are swarming bees dangerous? In this instance they certainly can be.

It is estimate that 1 or 2 people in a 100 will experience an allergic reaction, stages 4 to 6, after a bee sting. It is caused by massive tissue destruction releasing large amounts of histamine into the vessels; this results in extreme dilation and drop in blood pressure.

Laying the victim on his or her back and raising the legs would help.

Ellis reports that African bees are no more venomous but they are more sensitive and attack in greater numbers.

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Raw honey

Raw honey is a rare product these days; most is heated and highly filtered to remove any "foreign particles." That unfortunately includes the pollen that makes it so unique.

You either keep hives yourself and it should start with the question are swarming bees aggressive? Or you find a small keeper who can assure you that he has not meddled with this nutritious choice food. You won't find it generally in supermarkets.

The irony of it is that raw honey requires less processing and really should be cheaper; it's easier to produce. But because it is so rare, you will pay a premium.

Find your own bees. It has been the hobby of a lifetime, the one that has stuck for over sixty years.

Remembering too that keeping a few hives is one of those hobbies that definitely pays its way; last year I harvested over five hundred 500g jars from ten colonies.

We always have a few extra Rands for little luxuries. This year it is going to be a top-notch Canon camera that I've been wanting for a long time; all paid for thanks to swarming bees.

Or find a local beekeeper. Most of the honey on supermarket shelves is imported with a very great likelihood of being adulterated with high fructose corn syrup; you will be none the wiser.

• Adulteration of honey with high fructose corn syrup
  

It's a good general rule in any case to eat locally-produced food wherever possible; it will be fresher, probably far better and lessen your carbon footprint.

Choice foods

Raw honey, rich in pollen is one of our choice foods; better still we should eat natural comb but that is impossibly expensive for all but keepers and the idle rich. But the bottled stuff you buy in the supermarket, in the main can best be described alas as highly-processed junk; rather consider a hive or three in the garden for some of those swarming bees.

If you're serious about your honey, think about your own bees for you and your children; it has been the hobby of a lifetime.

Last week a new colony moved into one of my swarming bee traps, so the last few days have been busy with preparing a spot for them. Two trees, unwanted in any case because they shade the veggie garden had to come down.

In their place we put in a small indigenous spekboom that produces copious amounts of nectar and pollen.

Having these swarming bees in the garden results in 100% pollination too; that means masses of butternut squash, fresh green peas and the like.

It's a sobering thought that bees are the only creatures that humans are utterly dependent on for their existence; they pollinate one in three mouthfuls of our food.

• Citrus fruit list.
• Why does honey crystallise?
• Beekeeping equipment
  

Bernard Preston

Bernard Preston is a retired DC, catcher of swarming bees and organic gardener; solar guru and general wellness nut too. Oh, and he is also the published writer of six books. His paperbacks are dirt cheap on Amazon as Ebooks.

Now with thirteen hives, he has enough. Then he will have ample honey for Christmas, birthday gifts and making mead.

The gift of a bottle of natural honey never makes the white elephant list after Christmas!

Bee under the mitre

Vegans

My brother and I were introduced to beekeeping by our grandfather who was a strict vegetarian.

Today he would have been called a vegan; he wouldn't wear a leather belt or shoes for example. Even though we are talking about a period nearly one hundred years ago, he already instinctively new that sugar was bad news. All sweetening was done with natural honey.

• So some vegans eat honey

Excessive sugar drives dementia and stroke; more than 10 tsp per day.

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