This last Saturday late in the afternoon one of my hives swarmed. This happens when the hive becomes too small for so many bees. This is also the honey bees’ natural way of reproducing. The queen takes approximately half of the hive and SWARMS. They’ll land on a tree branch or pretty much anything, but most of us has seen a large ball of bees hanging from a tree branch. Afterwards, scout bees go looking for a new home. It could be a hole in a tree or in the wall of an old barn or an abandoned house. This new place will allow the new hive to grow from approximately 10-20 thousand bees to 40-50 thousand bees.
The original hive will make a new queen, and in 16 days she will emerge. She will fly on two mating flights far from her hive so as to keep the blood line strong. Then she will go about laying 1,500 eggs a day till early fall. She can live up to five years.