Bee swarm in LaSalette a rare sight
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Even if that old farmer’s poem is right and a swarm of bees in July isn’t worth a fly, it’s still a welcome sight for those concerned with declining honeybee populations.
It’s also pretty darn cool to see.
Judy Garniss recently discovered one of these swarms near her home in La Salette – or at least her dogs did – and knew she had found something quite special.
“My dogs kept getting bit by something in that spot so we would avoid it,” she says. “But the other day I walked the dogs out here in the morning, and by the time my husband took the dogs out at night this thing had grown to about three feet long and two feet wide. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
According to local beekeeper Chris Crocker of Crocker Honey, a swarm is the result of a beehive reaching it’s capacity and splitting into two colonies, with one scouring the area for a new home.
“When a hive is getting too full inside they will create a second queen,” says Crocker. “The new queen will stay in the old hive with half of the bees, and the other half of the bees will gorge themselves on honey and leave with the old queen.”
The bees that leave the hive will then create a swarm on a shrub or a low-lying tree branch and send out workers to search for a new location.
Crocker says although stumbling upon thousands of bees can be quite alarming, the swarming bees are actually quite docile and are very unlikely to sting.
While the swarm is an indication of a healthy, growing beehive, Crocker typically is called to collect a half dozen of them every year, and this is only the first one he’s been contacted about in 2013.
“(The swarm) certainly shows that the hive was healthy enough to split,” he says. “On the flipside, I know myself and some other beekeepers haven’t noticed many swarms this year, and that’s a pretty good sign that things aren’t as they ought to be.”
Crocker worries it’s just one more indication of a growing problem among bee and other insect populations, as according to the Canadian Honey Council, Canada has lost 35% of its honeybees in the past three years.
There is speculation among members of the scientific community that the use of pesticides, particularly neonicotinoid pesticides, is having an adverse effect on populations of bees and other insects like wasps and monarch butterflies.
Crocker Honey and a number of other beekeepers in the area are participating in one of many ongoing studies looking to discover the cause of the decline, in the hope that a swarm of honeybees won’t be such a rare sight in the future.
As for the old poem, Crocker says that swarms in July typically aren’t worth a fly because it takes quite a while for a new colony to become established enough to survive the winter – most swarms occur in May and June – although there are always exceptions.
He also says that anyone who finds a swarm of bees close to their home may want to contact a local beekeeper to remove it, as swarms can often settle in undesirable locations like attics, barns and even under barbecue covers.