Monday 16 July 2012

A Swarm of Honey Bees

Yesterday morning I looked out of the window to see clouds of bees at the front of the house. After a while some of them started to settle on a pine tree, by the driveway. Throughout the day they all eventually congregated in the same spot, there were literally thousands of them.

Apparently what was happening was that the queen leaves the hive to create a new colony, she takes with her approximately 60% of the worker bees, these can number tens of thousands. She then settles in a temporary location and all the workers surround her for her protection. They can stay there for several days, while the scout bees find a new hive location, which they then move to.

It was an amazing sight and fortunately they settled low down, this gave me the opportunity to get some close-up shots.


honey bee, insect, swarm, nature, wildlife
honey bee, insect, swarm, nature, wildlife
honey bee, insect, swarm, nature, wildlife
honey bee, insect, swarm, nature, wildlife
honey bee, insect, swarm, nature, wildlife
honey bee, insect, swarm, nature, wildlife
honey bee, insect, swarm, nature, wildlife
honey bee, insect, swarm, nature, wildlife
honey bee, insect, swarm, nature, wildlife

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