Swarm took off and returned to original site explanation?

[Ivor Kemp]

Never happened to me before with a swarm!

Went to collect a swarm that was conveniently resting on a twig on a bush about 4 feet up.

It had come from a colony in a recess behind a grill just under the roof of the owners house which was clearly visible. He doesn't mind it there at all and says they swarm every year!

Clipped the branch gently at which point the whole lot (not that many) took to the air and after about 10 minutes flying round returned to the colony in the grill some going straight in and some accumulating on the wall round it but all went in before dusk.

Why and how did they do this? Surely even if it was a cast swarm they would have had a Queen who would not have been accepted back or the rest of them or ...

 

[Jeff Buzz]

Queen did not fly out with them, they will probably be out again later.

 

[itma]

Often described as a mating flight.

I'm not sure that is a full explanation, because it doesn't happen on all mating flights.
My suspicion is that the Princess heads off out on the razzle, and sometimes a bunch of bees think that she's going for good (a cast), and join in the general excitement.
If she pauses on the way home, the supporters would too.
It may even be connected with mating flights happening earlier from tiny colonies (Apideas) than from full hives.

As far as "the average worker" in the colony is concerned, there can't be very much difference between a mating flight and a cast. So, I think its understandable that the beekeeper or observer might also be confused as to what is going on. The difference is just in the intention of the princess to return or not - and how do you (or the workers) determine that?

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Fascinating. Many thanks.

 

[beeno]

Often described as a mating flight.

The difference is just in the intention of the princess to return or not - and how do you (or the workers) determine that?

The workers would not have any problems in determining whether it is a cast or not - another virgin in the house? I prefer to think of these incidences as aborted swarm attempts i.e. she did not follow for whatever reason. Unless empirical evidence can prove otherwise.

 

[SixFooter]

I saw this happen a while ago. My neighbouring allotment holder's bees came out, swirled around quite a big area for a bit scaring some people 1/2 to death. They then formed a beautiful swarm on a fence post on my allotment. I walked over to the swarm, but was beaten back by aggressive bees. 10 minutes later they started to swirl around again and eventually went back into their original hive. At the time, I thought the Q was probably clipped and this had really pissed them off. Hower, we never worked it out as the Q was not clipped and a few days later they swarmed for real and buggered off.

 

[Cul a cnoic]

Ignore this reply of mine

Sent from my GT-S5830 using Tapatalk 2

 

[pargyle]

I saw this happen a while ago. My neighbouring allotment holder's bees came out, swirled around quite a big area for a bit scaring some people 1/2 to death. They then formed a beautiful swarm on a fence post on my allotment. I walked over to the swarm, but was beaten back by aggressive bees. 10 minutes later they started to swirl around again and eventually went back into their original hive. At the time, I thought the Q was probably clipped and this had really pissed them off. Hower, we never worked it out as the Q was not clipped and a few days later they swarmed for real and buggered off.

Fascinating isn't it ? We've been 'keeping' bees in a formal way since Langstroth and really we only skim the surface of bee behaviour in terms of our knowledge. None of the above suggestions will be found in any of the bee books and yet they are all probably correct in one way or another .... there should really be a compendium of 'non-standard bee behaviour' for those of us who are continually bemused !