Massive Swarm Drop You Won't Believe

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Mr. Ed that I mention in the video is Jeff Horchoff on YouTube.    / mygracieme  

The beekeeper's jacket I was wearing was compliments of Guardian Bee Apparel. https://guardianbeeapparel.com/

Let me explain what's going on in this massive swarm drop video. The honey bees you are seeing in this video are all bees that exited hives to go forage and then their boxes were moved before they returned. They are lost. They can not go in search of their queen or hive and they will rarely join another colony in an established hive. These are not all from one colony and they are not from swarms. They find each other near where all the hives had been placed and cluster together peacefully until someone comes to collect them or they die from starvation.

This video was shot at a work yard that belongs to a VERY large commercial beekeeping company. The amount of bees lost here in the process of requeening or making splits is a drop in the bucket and doesn't negatively affect the overall health of the colonies they came from. In fact the reduction in numbers of bees in the sometimes overpopulated boxes can reduce swarming potential and therefore even help the beekeeper. This very same thing happens on any small apiary when boxes are moved but with the hobby beekeeper who only moves one or two hives the lost bees aren't even really noticeable. When thousands of very healthy hives are moved through a work yard the effects seem extreme but they are just part of the work. This is not a result of carelessness or of any improper procedures. Within beekeeping the overall health of the colony is the most important thing above the health of the individual bee.

At the time we shot this video tractor trailer loads of bee hives had been trucked into this yard for requeening. This was in early spring after the almond crop pollination. The boxes are offloaded and the queens removed. The boxed are then loaded back on the truck and moved to various out yards where new mated queens will be added back. This practice gives all the colonies a new queen every year. Queens can live several years but their egg production/laying can slow with age. The younger queens keep the hive healthier. There is a lot more to all this but those are the basics.

The bees collected here are Italian honey bees. These bees are at the stage in life when they forage. In other words they are the gatherers. They go out in search of food and water for their colony. There are no Africanized genetics here. These are also the older bees from the colonies. The job of forager is the last job a bee will typically have before it's death. Even though these are older bees and we have to come up with equipment and queens to get all this done this is, of course, still a benefit to us. It also benefits the company that allows us to come in and collect these clusters, or swarms as we still call them. In the end though, we do this as much for enjoyment as for any gain.

Many thanks to my brother Thomas McCaffrey and our good friend Darren Strauss for helping make this video possible.

I hope you enjoyed the video. Thanks for your support.

Outro music is Overhead by my cousin Dennis Campbell of Collins, MS.

Other music is:
The Vindicator Waltz - FormantX - Epidemic Sound
Fight for Glory - FormantX - Epidemic Sound

This could have gone really wrong.