The Villages, FL: Honey Bee Swarm

The Villages, FL: Honey Bee Swarm, 40 Ft. High

As one British Beekeeper friend told me: Buggers!!

The photo below shows a The Villages, FL. Honey Bee Swarm, perched high in a tree about 40 feet in the air. I had to use my telephoto lens to shoot it. 

The Villages Honey Bee Swarm in Tree

Buggers, because this very large, very healthy looking swarm, issued from one of our honey bee hive boxes, in a yard we keep in Oxford, near The Villages, Florida. I was in the yard to perform maintenance and was to 'split' some of our hive boxes, partly in order to keep swarming from happening!

Swarming is simply the honey bee colony's way of reproducing. The Queen and about 10-20,000 of her daughters and sons, fly away from the existing nest, and land somewhere nearby, in order to figure out where to move to permanently.

When this happens , we lose a LOT of bees, the queen and a lot of honey making ability. 

Buggers. 

Please, don't attempt a removal of bees, even The Villages Bee Removal, as they can be deadly, even swarms have attacked us since Killer Bees are now here. We've had fatalities occur in Florida because of improper stinging insect removal techniques.

Contact the Stinging Insect Experts at 321-206-5100 or 1-800-343-5317 or submit a bee removal FREE inspection here!

Richard Martyniak, M.Sc., Entomologist (Univ of Fla'04); Registered Beekeeper (FL0010609M)

The Buzzkillers, LLC, Licensed (FL DACS JB144428), Insured & Certified(FL DACS JF136628) for your protection

ALLFloridaBeeRemoval.com

Oxford Fl., Africanized (?) Honey Bees in pole on Ground

This year we've had a spike in bee removal calls from near Oxford Fl., just west of The Villages, in Central Florida. What's disconcerting to me, is the proportion of these bees that exhibit Africanized Honey Bee (AHB) behaviors.

AHB, as many folks know, are a hybrid of a European subspecies of Honey Bee, and an African Honey Bee, Apis mellifera scuttelata, and has been present in Florida for probably about 10 years. These bees are moving north throughout the peninsula, and often exhibit a more defensive posture. ( in other words, they can sting the fire outta you, family and pets!).

One of the other cool behaviours, is their propensity to live near or in the ground, a place few self-respecting European Honey Bees would even consider! So, water meters are often the first in ground nesting locations that we find, and then voids, such as these poles have, are soon filled with a nest of very feisty bees!

Oxford, FL Honey Bee Nest in Pole

These were moderately defensive, and readily hassled neighbors that insisted on getting too close to the removal process. They quickly (and loudly) ran away!

Richard Martyniak, M.Sc., Entomologist
ALLFloridaBeeRemoval.com
1-800-343-5317