Talk:Swarming (honey bee)

Measurements
I do believe that a significant proportion of beekeepers are in the U.S. and providing both metric and U.S. standard measurements is important. If there are no serious objections, I would like to do the conversions and insert the U.S. standard measurements in as well.

Bigbearomaha (talk) 15:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Use of subjective language
There is some bit of using terms like "good beekeepers.." etc.. throughout the article that is unnecessary and does not take into considerations other approaches and principles held in beekeeping. There are other schools of beekeeping thought which follow organic or 'natural facilitated' methods that encourage the occurrence of natural swarming and make use of 'external' techniques to capture or retain said swarms. This is not 'good' or 'bad' beekeeping, merely another approach.

Using subjective terminology is only detrimental to the adoption of beekeeping by new people and is suggestive that those following 'non-traditional practices are being judged.

Bigbearomaha (talk) 16:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

are honey bees the only bees or hornets that swarm?
Swarming redirects here to Swarming (honey bee) MacDaid (talk) 14:59, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction in Smoke Usage?
There are two statements in the article that seem to contradict themselves concerning the usage of smoke in swarm management. One states "Smoke is not recommended to calm a clustered swarm. Smoke will have the opposite effect on a clustered swarm as many bees will become agitated and fly about instead of settling down." Then, a few paragraphs down, "While capturing the bees, smoke is used to calm the bees which makes it safer and easier to remove the colony." So, which is it? Does smoke calm bees or agitate them? As I'm not a beekeeper, I can't make that decision but someone here ought to in order to minimize the confusion. 71.80.125.105 (talk) 02:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Swarm Collecting
Since many people will consult this entry in the event of a swarm landing in their gardens, &c, and since the collection of swarms is vital for both bee keeping and for the survivability of the bees, there should be a section on the need to arrange collection as soon as possible. Something like:

"Swarm survivability depends on how long passes between swarming and establishing a permanent new home. It is also easier to collect a swarm soon after landing. It is important that swarms be collected as soon as possible after landing. Professional beekeepers should be contacted as soon as a swarm is noticed.

[Follows list of national collection co-ordination websites, including UK: British Beekeepers Association http://www.bbka.org.uk/ ]

Source: ″

This is the Reference to be placed at the end of the article: → Press Release, British Beekeepers Association http://www.bbka.org.uk/files/library/swarms_-_advice_for_the_public_may_2013_x_1369834827.pdf

109.157.66.130 (talk) 11:04, 8 June 2013 (UTC)David Perkin.


 * Also in the swarming section, there was a passage that describes a method of capturing bees from established hives in structures:  "Usually a beekeeper or bee removal company will use a bee vacuum to capture the bees in a caged container so they can be transported to a new hive. This way is easy and if done with just the right amount of suction, few bees are lost." It did not describe the actual process of collecting a honey bee swarm, so I removed it. -- BenXD.393 (talk) 20:37, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

References to livestock ranching not helpful
"Swarming is to the beekeeper what losing all of his calves is to a cattleman." Perhaps there are a handful of ranchers out there in the world (that are interested in beekeeping) to whom such a comparison might be meaningful, but for the rest of us? (What does "losing his calves" mean? They die? They are sold off? They fly away in a swarm?? 178.8.21.179 (talk) 13:50, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Foraging during swarm
Today I collected a swarm where it seemed a very large minority of bees had packed corbiculae with pollen. When I arrived at the swarm, it looked like foragers were returning to the swarm with this pollen. I have done a bit of searching and not learned much about foraging behavior of Apis mellifera during a swarm, which I had basically imagined didn't happen. Would be very interesting to find this behavior documented. Muniche (talk) 02:57, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Section on Human Behavior
It seems like this section does not contribute anything to the article, and should be removed. What do other people think? -- BenXD.393 (talk) 20:37, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Why?
What triggers swarming? 216.255.165.198 (talk) 14:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)