What is this? :)
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/...1cf68f5303.jpg
DH saw them when he was riding his dirt bike on the back of our property..
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What is this? :)
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/...1cf68f5303.jpg
DH saw them when he was riding his dirt bike on the back of our property..
That's cool!
(sorry, that's probably the info you were looking for)
From what I understand, they're swarming. Trying to find a new place to live. :)
Really? It's kind of surreal.. they're all just huddled there.. all lined up in a big giant lump.
BTW, am I wrong to think it's a little early?
I think it is just the right time. This same thing happen to someone's garage here in Dallas a few weeks ago. Had to get a bee guy out to remove all the bees.
Ahh, well no one is removing ours :P They can happily find a home... they're not anywhere near our house :)
That is so cool! :) Native honeybees have really taken a beating from mites and other pests, at least in my area. It's good to see a hive doing so well that there needed to be a swarm.
It's a honeybee swarm, typical for Texas this time of year. This is how bees start new colonies and multiply in nature.
The hive they came from got overcrowded, so the old queen took off with half the population, leaving the other half to raise a new queen in the original hive. This solves their overcrowding issue.
The swarm will temporarily amass on a branch or lamp post or some such location, with the queen being kept warm and protected in the middle of the ball of bees.
Meanwhile, scout bees from the swarm are flying off over several miles in all directions looking for a good new location for everyone to move into, and the swarm waits patiently until one of the scouts find a good spot and comes back to the swarm, tells them where the new good location is, and leads everyone to the new home.
The important thing to know is that the swarm will only wait there until scouts have found a new home for them, then they'll be gone. This could take a few hours or a few days. The swarm is GENTLE. They are not defending a hive or protecting honey stores. You could probably put your hand right on the bees in the swarm and you would not likely be stung at all. They won't be aggressive you unless they are heavily Africanized bees.
Soon the scouts will locate a good new home to move into and the whole swarm will suddenly take off and be gone just as quickly and mysteriously as they appeared. Best is to just leave them alone and they'll not harm anything. :)
Factoid: Honeybees which are living in trees or other unsupervised places are called feral honeybees. No honeybees are native to the Americas- they were all brought from Europe with the colonists. There are over 4000 species of actual native bees here though, most of which which are called solitary bees. These include leafcutter bees and mason bees among others. They dont live in colonies and dont make honey or sting. They pollinate like nobody's business though, and are fun to house and to watch. Most people know nothing about them, though in Europe people often put up garden nesting sites for the little 'wild bienen'/wild bees. :) They are a great alternative for folks who cannot keep honey bee hives on their property, not to mention helping our native bee population which is suffering right along with the honeybee from the overuse of pesticides/herbicides.
Here's a video of my little 'wild bienen' solitary mason bees going in and out of the tubes in my nesting blocks on my kitchen porch (the chicken wire is to keep woodpeckers from going after the tubes of bee cocoons):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zkagSVQBrg
That's really cool!
My first thought was, where's my swarm catchin' bag when I need it:D. I would love to get that little swarm and put it right in my empty hive.
Bleeker beat me to the punch to tell you what that was and what was going on. Chances are they are already gone and moving into a new home, hopefully a hollow tree and not someone's house.