While swarms are typically inoffensive, public concern over locations of swarm temporary resting points or less than ideal final destination choices (personal residences, schools, day care centers, senior centers, etc) are understandable.

Therefore, we recommend you contact us at HaysCountyBeekeepers@gmail.com and provide us with the following information so we can help you as best as possible: 

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• Address where the swarm has temporarily settled or moved in

• Type of structure

• How long it has been there

• Brief description with height and picture(s)

• Contact Phone Number

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• Honey bee swarms are a natural biological event.  In Texas, most swarms normally occur during the Spring months of April and May, but they happen in other months as well.

 

• Swarming is the reproduction mechanism of the super-organism that a colony of bees is. When a healthy colony has become over-crowded, it will issue a swarm.  Conditions that include abundant nectar and pollen as well as rapid population growth become trigger for colonies to swarm as a natural means of  reproducing, thereby ensuring continuation and growth of the species.  

 

• Swarms issue after the colony grows new queens and the existing queen leaves with about half of the existing bees in search of a new home. A swarm normally starts by congregating on a tree or other object approximately 30-40 yards from the originating colony, with the queen at its center. Scout bees then now identifying new possible locations/cavities for the swarm to relocate into and build a new hive.

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• After "democratic" negotiations within the swarm and scouts, a location is selected through a majority consensus, and all the bees   in the swarm travel in a cloud of bees to the new location.  The swarm will generally only stay in on its initial swarm point for one to three days while the scouts are identifying potential new locations, then promptly pick up and leave for the new location.

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• Swarms are generally not aggressive, because they do not have brood (eggs/larva) or food resources to defend and are in desperate mode for survival, with limited resources before they starve to death. This intermediate stage is extremely precarious for them, and time is of the essence, which is why they sometimes pick less than ideal cavities, or sometimes start building comb outsides, in water meters or under structures.  

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• Once a Swarm has moved into a structure or a cavity and has started building comb, it no longer is a swarm but an established colony. Only properly trained beekeepers can safely remove established colonies from structures and cavities and prevent the disastrous consequences simply poisoning the colony will lead to (rotting of comb and brood, invasion of pests and leakage of spoiled honey and larvae bodily fluids, sure to cause expensive repairs).

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• A lot  of non-professional removers will offer their services for free in exchange for the bees, but most of the time they will leave property owners with expensive structural repairs, unfinished work and potentially costly liabilities. We can put you in contact with certified and insured professional removers, so consider emailing us at HaysCountyBeekeepers@gmail.com with the info requested above.