If you’ve ever wondered how honeybees might live, if we didn’t put them into hive boxes, here’s a look at a feral colony on their fresh white heart-shaped natural comb.
See how the centre of the heart is darker, where the brood was laid? Look closely, and you can even see a few capped cells.
This photo was sent in by one of our readers, Leza, who dropped a note in the Bee Talk section this summer when she spotted some honeybees living wild near Burton, New Brunswick, just downriver of Fredericton:
I saw your comment about swarming and want to know if any of you would like to have the swarm that built in my pear tree. I have a beautiful comb and a great tail of bees…. it has been there since June some time. It seems like such a shame to kill them.
We were pretty excited about this, as it is not too common, in this chilly New Brunswick climate, to find honeybees gone feral like that, and certainly they would not have survived very long into the autumn. Fortunately, CBA member Sterling responded, Leza was hooked up with a local beekeeper, and the honeybees were rescued and found a new home before the honey flow ended.
Written by beekeepers
Topics: Apis mellifera