Honey Bee Swarm

Description:

This was a huge group of honeybees on the move to find a new nesting site. The swarm was made up of thousands of honeybees and was approxiately 3' long and approximately 1 foot across. It was a mass of flying, walking, wriggling bees. The honeybees swarm to reproduce the colony. The queen bee, along with a large number of worker bees, leave the original colony. The swarm travels a short distance from the original site while the scout bees search for a new location for the colony. Once that is secured, the swarm flies to the new location and starts the new colony. A prime swarm can be up to 60% of the bees in the original colony.

Habitat:

This swarm was seen on a bush in a backyard.

Notes:

The bees were swarming in the backyard of my sister-in-law who knows of my fascination with things of nature. She called me to see if I wanted to photograph it. I photographed the swarm over the course of approximately 1 l/2 hours. It grew in size during that time but never became massive; it just stayed LARGE. The swarm stayed in that bush for less than 2 hours after my last photograph at which point the entire swarm rose into the air and left. Unfortunately, I did not stay to that point and did not get that final shot.