A bee story

I would start this story with a well-known Einstein quote

If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.

Bee colonies are one of the most amazing communities on Earth. Perfectly organized, with a precise hierarchy, well-coordinated, and fearless, they are one of the most important links in nature. My husband is a beekeeper and it is always interesting for me to listen to his stories from the apiary. And here is a situation that happened in our orchard - swarming of bees. A swarm of bees clung to a peach branch, looking for a new home.

What is swarming? This is the way bees reproduce in nature, that is when one colony of bees divides into two. This happens when there is a lot of pollen in nature, when the bee colony is strong and when the bees feel that there is no more space in the hive for eggs, food, and other bees. Swarms are a group of bees, from a few thousand to ten thousand bees. How does swarming occur? When the situation is in the hive as I described it, the bees send signals to the queen and tell her that there is a lot of food in nature. After that, the queen sends signals to other bees to make more queens. The bees then calm down, no longer bring food, nectar as before and spend almost all their energy on the production of queens.

After ten days, the queens start to come out. When the first two new queens come out, the bees and the old queen decide which one will stay, and they throw the other one out of the hive. The old queen then sends a signal and one group of bees takes honey in their stomachs and mouths and at around 12 o'clock at noon the old queen and part of the bees come out. The other bees stay with the new queen and destroy the rest of the nest with queens or the first process is repeated until all the bees leave the hive.

Beekeepers are afraid of this process in their hives and are constantly trying to prevent this, but when something like this happens in the spring when there are many flowers, swarming is real happiness for bees, and it should be for the beekeeper because it is a sign that the bees are healthy. This is actually the way bee colonies spread and reproduce.

This is exactly what happened in our orchard! But we managed to return the swarm to the hive.

I hope you enjoyed this natural process. Have a nice day and take care of the bees :)