Re:Bee swarms

[Marv Walker <Marv@MarvWalker.com>]

At 06:01 PM 4/19/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Marv, I would like your feed back on this.  One day my husband and I
>were riding when our horses froze in their tracks as a huge black clud
>of bees came down the trail and compleely inveloped us.  I could not
>even see my husband next to me.  You could hear them even b4 you saw
>them.  I tried to get my horse to move but he wouldn't.  The bees
>swarmed around us and then passed on and that was that.  I was scared to
>death.  There had to be thousands of them.  No one got stung and to this
>day our horses stll hesitiate at that spot.
>Should we have stayed still, or if we could have gotten our horses to
>move should we have left quickly???  I missed some of the posts on the
>subject.  I had heard that some bees chase movement.

When hives get too crowded roughly half the worker bees hive fill up
with honey.  The queen, if she has not been clipped, and the packed
up workers leave the hive and hang around for awhile while scout bees
go out and look for a suitable place to build a hive.

If the queen has been clipped, the bees will grow another queen and after
her mating flight, she will go with the swarm.

When the swarm goes off it is quite a sight.  I have been in numerous
swarms and have not seen one as thick as you relate but hey, I haven't
seen every bee swarm in the world.  When I was in Phoenix doing a clinic
a couple years ago a cloud of bees shot over my head like a bullet.  You
were probably in little danger because when bees are loaded with honey
they are seldom interested in stinging.  Bees are pretty dedicated to the
survival of the hive and the loss of any honey from the swarm is more
important than defending a non-existent hive.

Beekeepers waft smoke across the supers when they are working the bees.
The smoke both dulls their sense of smell and, because they may have to
flee a forest fire, makes them start loading up on honey to take with them.
Honey-loaded bees usually do not sting.

Bees can see movement but they respond more to the exhaled carbon
dioxide and fear pheremone.  In keeping with the thread of encountering
bees while on the trail and the likelihood of encountering African Honey
Bees, your wisest move would be to leave the area as quickly and quietly
as possible even though I believe you are in little danger from a true swarm.

When I gather swarms I just go in in my street clothes and box them up.
The worst danger is swallowing some of them as you breathe.  I have
NEVER been stung while working swarms.

Bees are mental creatures.  If you go into the bee yard you better have good
thoughts.  It makes all the difference in the world.  If you're mad at someone
or something, pick another day to work bees.

Marv "Honey has no expiration date." Walker