Bee Swarm
Mr. Crim has a lot of bee hives at our house and some at two of his friends' houses. Today, one of the hives tried to swarm! The videos below show the swarm and what Mr. Crim did to keep his bees from leaving.
When a hive becomes too large for its box, it will start to form swarm cells (or groups). The queen will lay new queen eggs that will hatch to become the new queen for the hive or leave with the swarm. When the new queen(s) hatch, part of the bee hive will leave to find a new place to live and build a new hive. This morning, Mr. Crim found a swarm of bees close to his other boxes.
Mr. Crim cut several of the branches off the small tree. Then he cut off the big top part.
The part that you don't see in this video is me holding the top of the tree trunk while Mr. Crim cuts the tree below the swarm. When it came off, the bees were flying ALL AROUND ME! At the beginning of the video, Mr. Crim holds the tree trunk where the swarm is still for a minute to let the bees calm down and get back on it. Then he carries it to an empty box he had set up earlier.