“I heard this loud buzzing when I came out of the house. When I went to look, there were thousands of bees coming into the yard.” It was a honeybee swarm.
My companion was watching a special sight, one the local beekeeper who put up the bee trap has never seen. The mass of bees landed on the box and gradually disappeared into it.
Persimmon Trees
The bee trap was strapped onto a native female persimmon tree. We enjoy her fruit every fall. The goats go crazy for them.
Insects like honeybees go crazy for the flowers and this tree was in full bloom. This was probably why the swarm’s scouts knew about the tree and came to check for a good place to live around it.
Bee Traps
The local beekeeper told us this is more of a bee lure than a trap. The scouts a honeybee swarm sends out are looking for a place with room inside and a roof to keep the rain out. A bee trap provides this plus foundation for a honeycomb.
These scouts found the bee trap, went back to the swarm and it came our way. In a couple of days the swarm has settled into their new home.
What Is a Honeybee Swarm?
When a hive gets too crowded, the bees raise a new queen. The new queen takes over. The old queen leaves with a crowd of bees to find a new place to live.
Bees can swarm for other reasons. When we first moved here, two hives were in the backyard. After the old beekeeper died, the hives were abandoned.
Parasites moved in. The bees moved out. We knew honeybees still lived out in the woods as they were regular visitors to the white clover in the lawn and the flowering vegetables in my garden.
The local beekeeper will move this honeybee swarm into a regular bee hive. The descendants of the old hives will again live as domestic bees.