Why Bees Swarm - John Coyle 5 October 18.00

WHY BEES SWARM

Following a previous very successful and informative talk on bees and bee-keeping, John Coyle made a welcome return to the Club to explain why bees swarm.  Intriguingly, he told us, while honey bees swarm, bumble bees and wasps don’t - one of those mysteries of Nature.

In any Scottish colony of bees, you will find three different types of bees: drones (males) which comprise only five per cent of the colony; workers (females) comprising 95 per cent; and a queen bee, of which there is only one. Having been mated, the queen bee produces eggs at an astonishing rate: from about April to June she will produce 1,000 eggs per day, amounting to some 15,000 eggs.  Of these eggs, the colony will select, again by a process that is as yet unfathomable, one female egg which the bees will feed with royal jelly, a specially sweet, protein-rich food.  This enables the queen to grow and develop at a greater rate and to a larger size than the other bees. The remainder of the eggs, tiny white grubs, will rely on their normal form of nourishment.

The crunch comes when the new queen is fully grown.  The colony can only support one queen; it is the original queen that is forced to leave.  As she leaves the colony, she will bring with her something like half the colony, which can amount to as many as 12,000 to 14,000 bees.  It is at this point that these bees swarm, clinging closely together at a new location away from the colony, and forming a recognisable swarm.  Once settled in the swarm, the bees have to find a new home.  Scout bees will go out to look for cavities protected from the wind and rain.  While this search is going on, and unless someone intervenes, the swarm will remain together, each bee being sufficiently full of honey to survive for about three days.  

When a suitable location is found for the swarm, the queen provides the rallying attraction.  The scent from her pheromones creates an overwhelming attraction for the worker and drone bees, ensuring a successful transition for the swarm to the new home.  At this point the swarm then forms a new colony. 

Asked about the lifespan of bees, John explained that worker bees in the summer will survive for about 40 days, the problem for them being that their wings wear out from extended periods of flying. In contrast, those bees hatched later in the season can live for as much as six months.  The queen is the exception to this general pattern: she will live for three to four years.

Glenn Montgomery, Speaker’s Host, thanked John for a fascinating talk.  Members had obviously greatly enjoyed hearing about this phase in the life of the bee.