Fighting swarms
Guest post written by- Dean Haley
Fighting swarms occur with our Tetragonula hockingsi and Tetragonula carbonaria bees. These fighting swarms occur with another colony of the same species, or sometimes between different species (e.g. hockingsi attacking carbonaria or vice versa).
Fighting swarm in flight
Fighting Swarm on box
Fighting swarm on box
It is widely believed that the fighting of our Tetragonula bees is the most fearsome in the world. Many thousands of dead bees can result!
There’s lots we don’t know about this behaviour, but we do know a couple of things;
1. If enough strange bees enter a hive in a short period of time, the hive will consider itself under attack and send out many thousands of bees as a defensive swarm. These defense swarms can occur even if the hive is not actually under attack, for example if some bees get lost and try to enter the wrong hive.
2. If there is really an attacking colony, they will try to take over the hive, kill the queen and put there own queen in there instead.
The list of things we don’t know about fighting swarms is far more extensive;
Why do they attack with such a loss of life? (Surely it would be easier to establish a new colony from scratch) Is it territorial? Are closely related hives ever attacked? Are all resident workers put to the sword, or do they become slaves to the new masters?
Matt Keir is a PhD student currently studying these questions and many more. He needs fighting swarms to study within the Brisbane area. If you have a fighting swarm and would like to participate please contact him by email at matthewr.keir@gmail.com
Matt has also expressed a keen interest in fights in natural bush settings.
More about Fighting bee swarms
All pictures taken by Dean Haley
This is just my thinking, so take it or leave it.
Allowing a take over from existing bees in an area where you put a new introduced hive is a very good thing.
Why?
Because not only do they rob the mother hive of resources ( which I have seen with my own eyes) which greatly increases bee numbers, they bring with them knowledge of the food resources & patterns in the local area, which is the important thing.
I’m betting they also bring with them in the dirty coloured resin , something like good bugs.
After the take over of mine, the smell coming from my hive totally changed.
The only down side I can see is genetic diversity
Hi Old Adrian. Many people report that the colonies they get after a fighting swarm take over is strong and vigorous. I have been lucky enough to box a couple of swarms and have found them to be be very strong bees. I think you are right on the money. Do you know if your take over is carbonaria or hockingsi?
Dean
Going from the emergence temperature from the hive I would say 98% sure they are carbonaria.
Your bees would always come & go by the south, & a couple months after, I started to notice a few bees coming from the west.
Bingo,Viking invaders.
I stopped it by plugging the entrance & moving the hive inside for 2 days.
Early April they were back again & this time in force.
When I got home & saw it, there were dead bees everywhere (videos on the net don’t do it justice) , so I let it continue.
What else could I do?
Bad thing is I lost your genetics.
Not only do I want to split hives, I also want to capture invaders & theory says I could do this from the other hive once or more a year.
Now we come to a guess.
Would the distant mother hive want to take over a daughter hive in a year?
The smell wouldnt have changed much in that time frame.
I reckon no, but time will tell.
I think a much more effective bait is bees from a different area , with a different smell.
I want my dean branded bees back,lol.
Here we go with the crazy thinking.
Keeping some hives a good front yard /back yard distant apart, will separate the joining smell from hives.
Introducing low numbered hives to a new area to capture new genetics can be very useful.
Very interesting observations. I think we could use brood from one of my hives up here, and your field bees to start a new colony Brazilian Style. This new colony will have my genetics once again.
Matt Keir is mentioned in the main article. He is doing a PhD study on fighting swarms because we really do not understand everything about them. It does seem true that at least some swarms are territorial. A new hive is attacked and killed and the attacker does not even take over.
Dean
Thanks for that Dean,but,
This is for the average person/bee keeper, that doesn’t have access to wild hives like me.
How do I get new genetics/a different area bee smell?
You put a weak hive in a friends place that is very far away from yours, with the chance it will provoke an invading swarm from bees in that area, that have filled their living area & are looking for more room, with local knowledge of food, &don’t like the new smell of foraging bees.
If they don’t invade?, then your hive still grows.
This does however mean you are handing down a death sentence to your bees in the weak hive.
Its a different(non maintained) method of capturing fighting swarms, which will give you increased strong hive numbers very quickly, because you can swap different area bees , with different area bees( in good inflow months), & if you keep good records?
Being emotionally attached & invested to insects/hives is a little crazy, I just don’t want to be known as the bee murderer.
Time for some more electro shock therapy ?, lol.
” Are all resident workers put to the sword, or do they become slaves to the new masters?”
I will also add I didn’t see any light coloured (new bees) being dragged out dead.
So the answer to that is a definite no, not all bees are killed.
I did see way more than normal, for weeks after ,walking dead outside the hive which makes sense.
As the invading swarm would be made up from older bees that are near to the end of their life.
Sorry for the multiple posts.
“A new hive is attacked and killed and the attacker does not even take over.”
Just my thinking again, but not all new queens will survive the flight to the new site,especially if it is far away.
Then the new site inspection & the mating flight, all take a toll.
Lots can go wrong, even with a strong new queen.
If you have other hives in your backyard close by , then they can steal a new queen from another hive, but they cant do this from a removed single hive.
I’m loving your thought processes Adrian 🙂