Frequently Asked Questions
Is it a Swarm, Hive or Colony?
Many people are confused by the terms “bee swarm” or “bee hive”and use the terms interchangeably. Let us explain the difference.
Bee Swarm
When a colony of bees outgrow their location in the wild the bees sense there will not be enough room and honey stores to maintain more bees and so they begin to create and feed another queen so as to divide the hive into two parts. Simply put, one queen stays with the bees in the hive and the other leaves, takes flight, with half of the worker bees to find a new place to live. Scout bees are sent out to find a new location and they return to tell the new queen where a likely spot might be for a new home. Bees eat honey to make the trip and off they go. You might find the bees in a ball on a shrub, tree branch, or in a corner of your house. They may be just resting on their journey or in the case of an Africanized hive they may start building right where they are (African bees are less picky about where they live). Generally speaking, even the most aggressive bee colony will not sting when they are swarming as they have no established colony to defend, they are just looking for a home and don’t want to expend the energy. A bee swarm removal can be performed more cheaply as it is a ball of bees that can be placed into a box and relocated without having to deal with angry bees and with honeycomb, honey, and bee larvae.
Bee Colony
Make sure you look around the house for hole in walls as your swarm might decide to go into your walls and create a bigger problem or better yet, just call us and we will come out and nab it! A bee colony is the bee swarm after it decides on a place to live and begins to build their new home. The queen lays eggs and the nurse bees raise them into adult worker bees to build and fill the bee colony with honey for the winter. Honey bees do not hibernate. In Florida bees only need a few days to get the honeycomb started and only a few weeks to get it filled with honey. Now is when your bee swarm’s defense mechanism kicks in as they now have a home to defend. This is where Africanized bees get their reputation for they designate more bees for defense, so bee careful! If there is lots of room in the wall, floor, chimney or attic, the bee colony can grow quite large before it senses a need to divide. This is why you do not want to stop up the hole or spray a bee colony that’s in your wall etc. What you will end up with is either a wall full of rotting honey or a colony wandering through your walls looking for a way out, which might mean bees in your kitchen or shower! Call us for a free consultation before you get into trouble.
Bee Hive
Hives are those cute white boxes you see in the orange groves with bees buzzing.
The word hive can be used also as a verb, i.e. you can hive up a colony of bees. But technically speaking a “bee hive” is a box of bees.