Australian Native Stingless Bees tend to swarm for a range of reasons. If a queen has died or is failing, a mating swarm may be observed. A mating swarm is usually a small swarm (a few hundred) of drones (boy bees) fighting to mate the virgin queen. This behaviour may last from days to weeks until a lucky, suave drone is successful in his advances.
Other swarms may result from colonies defending themselves when they feel threatened. This could be caused by a stray colony nearby or if a hive split has been conducted too close to another hive. Defensive behaviour can sometimes be accompanied by bees ‘scenting’ the outside of their hive. Defensive swarms don’t tend to last very long (up to a few days) but can involve anything from a few hundred to a few thousand bees.
Another reason for swarming behaviour is when one colony attacks and try to over take another colony. This usually results in complete carnage with hundreds of bees locked in deadly embraces on the ground at the front of a hive. It can be quite upsetting for a native bee keeper to watch but rest assured the result is (usually) a stronger colony with the strongest hive winning. We even see different species of stingless bees take over colonies which is always interesting.
There are other less common reasons for hives swarming, including random swarming on a warm day or they may swarm because there is something awry with the colony. In some instances we have seen swarms exist because a pest has moved into the colony or the hive nest has become unstable due to other reasons such as being water logged etc. Getting to know the behaviour of your colony will help you determine what behaviour is normal and what is unusual for your hive.
The following movie was taken during winter and is of a colony which we believe is in defensive mode. We happened to introduce a few new colonies of stingless bees close to this hive the day this swarm began. We think a few of the bees from one of the new hives have strayed into the path of the existing colony triggering a huge swarm.
This swarm lasted a couple of days and whilst there were quite a few casualties usually seen in fighting/attacking swarms, due to the time of year and it only lasting a couple of days, all indicators is that this was a defensive swarm.
Nevertheless, it was a great opportunity to catch some footage of the carnage as well as demonstrate that whilst stingless bees can be quite brutal to other stingless bees, they are not too fussed by human interaction whilst in the midst of fighting and defending. Hope you enjoy the video.
