witnessed a mating swarm

[Jon]

I witnessed a mating swarm from an Apidea today.

I nipped up at lunchtime to take a queen out of the Apidea of one of our group members as he needed it to re-queen a colony tonight.

At about ten past one the bees started piling out of one of my Apideas which had a queen hatched 11 days ago, from the cell I brought home in the puncture repair kit Thursday week ago.

I saw the queen leave after most of the bees were out and she defecated in the air as she took off.

The bees milled around the allotment about 30 feet away for ten minutes or so, no more than 10-15 up feet in the air. I walked down into the middle of the swarm and the first thing I noticed was that it was packed full of circling drones and these did not come out of the Apidea. There were far too many bees.

The cloud of bees then drifted back towards the Apidea and bees started fanning at the entrance. I watched carefully for 5 minutes but did not see the queen arrive back so I am guessing she was one of the first back in. Possible I just missed her though. I put an excluder strip on. It was about 20c and sunny, perfect mating weather.

So either this is apiary vicinity mating or I have a drone congregation area above my apiary. I have seen this cloud of bees in the air over the allotment several times but this was the first time I saw the bees leave an Apidea en masse. I had expected them to disappear and reappear later.

Either way, I like it, as my drones are bound to predominate in the mix.

video here

[Adam]

"She defecated in the air as she took off".
Obviously a high-class girl.
I've seen a queen return - once, and a queen in a mini-nuc with a 'mating sign' attached. That's it.
You are rare in your observations I think. If the drone area continues, you have a good opportunity to see what happens. You need a higher resolution camera now so we can see well!

[Jon]

I know. That camera is 9 years old. It cost me $500 in New York and was state of the art when I got it. It was over £500 in Dixons at the time. Only 4.3 MP and shoots a maximum of 60 seconds video.

I have seen queens coming and going from apideas loads of times but that is the first time I have witnessed the entire process from start to finish.
Is the swarm to protect the queen or has it some role in sucking in a big cloud of drones. I have always read that queens fly for miles and mate 60 feet up in the air but this entire business was in view of the apidea and not that far above the ground. There is a lot of speculation about queen mating and drone congregation areas but how many have witnessed it and how many are quoting from the literature.
The weather was perfect so there was nothing to stop the queen flying a couple of miles.
I think some of the times when you find an apidea empty it is when the queen settles and the bees then cluster around her and do not return home.

I couldn't understand how so many bees had come out of an apidea until I walked into the cloud of bees and it was packed with drones.

[Adam]

It could be the case that the pheromone of the queen is on her own bees thus amplifying the effect - or confusing the drones in some way - keeping them off or too many might get to the queen at once? Or adding to the hormonal mix to get the drones excited. I assume that the queen joins the drones rather than the other way around?

Within the hive there is a trigger for the queen to leave - Colonies swarm before the queen comes out - they don't follow her - rather they push her out from what I've seen. From your description that's what happened - maybe in a mating flight there is an urge to get the queen in the air and some workers just get a bit confused.

[Jon]

I saw another one in the air today. Didn't see the bees leaving but I localised the apidea very quickly as the cloud of bees was right above it. All the bees were in the air, maybe half a dozen left in the apidea. I waited 2 feet from the apidea and they started returning 5 minutes later. A couple of dozen bees came back and started to fan. I watched it like a hawk but failed to see the queen return. This was about 5 o clock in the afternoon, quite warm and muggy after a rainy morning. The queen in question hatched on 18th June. Definitely a mating hot spot over my allotment.

[Trog]

I, too, had heard about drone congregation areas and that queens mated high up well away from the apiary. However, daughter and I witnessed a mating flight a few feet away from the apiary. It was the first fine day after a month of rain and queenie (a supercedure queen) didn't return but settled in a cast-sized swarm in a nearby hedge. As we didn't at the time know where she'd come from we hived her, she built up a nice nuc, and she's now teaching a newcomer how to keep bees. I'm sure she'll keep him in order as she's a good 'un!

[Jon]

Hi Trog. that happens all the time and I reckon it is a mistake due to the queen settling before she gets back to the hive and then the bees settle around her. Some queens may well fly to drone congregation areas but that is not what I am seeing unless the congregation area is directly above my apiary/allotment. Stranger things have happened I suppose.

[Trog]

Have you known a queen to find her way back to the correct hive after she's settled elsewhere? We didn't want to take the chance.

[Jon]

Have you known a queen to find her way back to the correct hive after she's settled elsewhere? We didn't want to take the chance.

Same here. Not worth the risk. I supect that it acts like a swarm from this point. I have found apideas completely empty and the bees do not return a day or two later. The mystery is where do they go. Probably into a hollow in a tree somewhere but 500 bees and a queen is hardly going to be viable. A remember two or three years ago it happened with a nuc which had a virgin queen. In this case I found 2/3 of the bees in the swarm and when I checked the nuc the remaining bees were really bad temperered as they had been left hopelessly queenless. I reunited and the queen was laying a few days later.

These are definitely mating flights as opposed to orientation flights as I have always checked and found eggs a couple of days after the event.

[Jon]

I saw two more mating swarms over my apiary today. One settled in the bracken at the edge of the railway line beside my allotment but I found the empty apidea and tipped the little cluster into it.
I was checking another one and could not find the queen and when I stood up I saw her enter the apidea via the front door. Must have been blocking her path when she was out on an orientation flight.
From the activity at the entrance of various apideas, I would say about ten queens flew today.