Swarms Don't Always Leave - Here's Why

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hi friends, my name is Ray. Thanks for joining my beekeeping channel. I'm a certified master beekeeper [music] through the University of Florida and today we talk about all things beekeeping and today I've got some great footage and something really unique that happened. [music] The other day I watched my bees swarm and then they changed their mind and flew back into [music] the hive and I caught it all on video. Well, actually I caught it on my phone so the footage is not the best footage that I've taken, but I think you're going to enjoy it nonetheless.

[00:00:24]>> [music] >> What I'd like to do today is just talk a little bit about swarming, but specifically why does a colony change its mind when it goes out of the hive and swarm? And then I want to show you this very cool footage. The first part of the footage is going to be of the bees leaving the hive in rapid just pouring out in rapid [music] succession one right after the other. They're making that tornado in the air and then at the end of the video today we're going to show them all changing their mind and going back into the hive. It was very cool. I've heard about this before. I've never caught it on camera before today. Let's get started.

[00:01:00]So, let me set up the scene a little bit so that you can kind of understand what happened. I'll show you some footage in the background.

[00:01:06]I was inspecting my hives and I noticed about three hives over from the hive that I was inspecting that there was a lot of activity going on, a little bit of a roar happening over there and so I decided to walk over and take a moment and look and see what was happening and sure enough I caught the hive in the act of swarming. And originally I pulled out my phone and I said, "Ah, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to record this and I'm going to make a video and I'm going to call it caught in the act."

[00:01:31]Because it was very cool to see the bees actually go and swarm. I wasn't thrilled about the fact that they were swarming, but hey, it happens. So, what actually happened next kind of caught me by surprise. So, the bees were pouring out of the hive in rapid succession. They were making that normal swirling tornado kind of thing in front of the hive trying to find their first landing spot.

[00:01:51]Swarming is a very normal process for bees reproduction. It means that your colony feels like it's strong enough that it can send off a group of bees, well, usually mostly the adult bees that are leaving with the old queen into another location and then leave the remaining hive to repopulate itself. And so, when that happens, the bees leave the hive and they typically will fly to a tree or to something that they hang on for anywhere from, I don't know, a couple hours to two or three days until they find a permanent cavity that they can go into. And this is what I was observing with my hive with this footage that you see here. But the difference was is I was looking to see where the bees were actually going to land in a tree. Now, if you've never seen this before, it looks kind of like this. They never clustered. They never found a destination that they were all agreeing on to where to go and then eventually they changed their mind and they flew back into the hive. In a normal swarming situation the bees lock into that queen's pheromone and follow her lead and surround her and basically wherever she goes, that's where they're going to go.

[00:02:58]However, when that doesn't happen, then the bees might decide not to follow through with what they had decided to do a little bit earlier and that's exactly what happened in this particular instance. Now, what is this called when a swarm leaves and then turns around and goes back to the hive from which it came? Well, some people call it a false swarm. Some people call it a aborted swarm. I even saw somebody call it a renegade swarm. None of these are scientific terms. They're all just beekeeper slang to describe this phenomenon. So, sometime that morning they had a meeting, but to put it in human language and they got everything ready and decided that yes, today's the day we're going to leave and depart from the colony. Before we jump into our content any further today, I just want to take a quick moment and say, "Hey, thanks to those of you that have chosen to join the channel and support the channel financially with your small contribution every month. Makes a big difference, especially when it comes to buying upgraded equipment and making my stuff look a little bit better or software. It really helps out a lot."

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[00:04:24]Let's go over a few reasons why this possibly happens.

[00:04:28]Number one, the scout bees were not ready. So, when a hive swarms, it sends out scout bees to potentially find locations where it can eventually land.

[00:04:37]And the scout bees come back to the hive. This is very interesting and they basically hold I don't know, maybe call it a meeting or whatever, these 20 to 30 scout bees and they come to a consensus on different locations and where they should go. If that consensus was never reached among the scout bees properly, when that hive leaves the swarm, they're like, "Hey, where are we going? I thought we were going over here. No, we're going over here." And eventually they're just like, "You know what? You guys make up your mind, figure out", talking to the scout bees, "where we're going to go and then we'll try this again another day." And that's basically one of the reasons why this can happen.

[00:05:11]A second reason why this might have happened is due to the queen.

[00:05:15]So, several things could have happened here. Number one, the queen could have never left the hive and the colony went out and said, "Hey, where is mama? She's not here. Let's go back in." Or she could have decided to drop out of the swarm and fly back into the hive herself. But for some reason one of something went wrong with the queen and this can be one reason why they choose to cancel the swarm that they started.

[00:05:38]When that queen's pheromone is not in the air, all of the bees that are in the air have nothing to orient themselves to or nothing to lock into to say, "Okay, this is what we're doing and where we're going." And so, if the queen chose to drop out, head back in or never actually even left the hive, that could be one reason why they decided to abort the whole swarming thing altogether. A little bit of a misconception here when it comes to the queen. A lot of beekeepers understand that before a hive swarms that the queen actually has to slim down a little bit to be able to fly. And the other bees kind of agitate her, they'll bite her and then they'll actually withhold some food from her to prepare her for actually being able to fly. Some beekeepers believe that perhaps one of the reasons why hives abort their swarm is because they discover that the queen is too heavy to fly. That's kind of an unlikely scenario because they actually start preparing the queen up to two to three weeks prior to the swarm to get her ready for this moment. And they typically do not initiate the swarm unless they're pretty certain that that queen is ready to fly.

[00:06:41]So, that's an unlikely scenario, just a little misconception that some people might have.

[00:06:46]Another factor that can be a reason why a colony aborts a swarm is environmental factors. And this could have been a factor in my particular case. Wind, temperature for example, rain can all be reasons why the colony says, "Hey, you know what? This is not a good day. Let's not do this." Now, the wind can actually be a factor for the bees and in this particular day that I was out there observing, there was a pretty good stiff breeze and they could have gotten out there and said, "You know what? This is not the right day for us to swarm and so let's head back into the hive." But so, in addition to queen issues, it can also be something in the environment that tells the hive this is not the best day to do this. So, that's another factor why sometimes bee hives abort their swarm. But at the end of the day we all know this. For whatever reason it happened they decided to just change their mind. They were going to do it.

[00:07:34]They changed their minds, turned around and went back into the hive. It's hard to tell as a beekeeper what the exact reason is, but there's a few things that we can know about how we manage this going forward once we see it happen. I think the first thing that I want to say is just because the colony went back into the hive, it does not mean the problem is solved. It's very likely that that hive is going to attempt to swarm again either within the next couple of days or maybe another week to 10 days at the very most. Again, depending on a lot of factors including weather. So, once that colony goes back, you might say, "Oh, phew, they've stayed back decided to stay back in the head out. So, it gives you some decision-making that you've got to make in regard to taking care of and managing that hive. The fact of the matter is is that swarm impulse is still inside of the hive. That once that beehive has that swarming impulse, it's one of the most powerful impulses to try to overcome inside of a colony. Once they decide it's hard to really change their mind. They're going to keep making the swarm cells and keep attempting to swarm to the best of their ability if the it is at all possible. So, they didn't change their mind. They actually just postponed the whole thing. So, what do you do? Well, here's what some of the things that I would suggest and what I did with my particular hive. Number one is do a hive inspection. If you can find and locate your queen, it's going to make your decision-making process a little bit easier.

[00:08:57]Look for swarm cells. Are there swarm cells? Are there swarm cells that have hatched? Are there swarm cells that look like they're about to hatch? That gives you a big clue as to where things are at. Do you still see a good brood pattern? Do you still see eggs? Do you still see larva? All of these are very important because it helps you to know that yes, this is a primary swarm and not an after swarm that happened, you know, the primary swarm happened a week ago and now this is an after swarm with a virgin queen and maybe that's the reason why it's a little bit confusing to the bees. So, whether you find eggs or larva can be a big indicator that yes, your queen might still be inside of the hive. Really, the key thing to do at this point is to try to find your queen if at all possible because the best probably management that I can think of, and if you have other suggestions, please put them down in the comments below, would be at this point just go ahead and split the hive. Split the hive into two hives. I would take the old queen and resources, meaning brood, nurse bees, honey, pollen, etc. and I would remove her to another location and then leave the remaining hive there. As long as they have some swarm cells in there or whether as long as they have some eggs and larva to be able to make another queen, then they're going to be okay. And so, that's probably the most proactive thing that you can do at this point. Now, if you know your queen is in there and you want to go ahead and try to destroy all the corn the swarm cells that are in there, that could be another option for you as well. In addition to that, you might really want to address one of the main reasons why that swarm might have been triggered in the very first place and that is congestion. Especially in the brood nest area. Having congestion up in the honey super area is really not as much of a factor for swarm triggering as it is in the brood nest area. When that brood nest begins to get packed full of brood or if they're backfilling the brood nest with honey and with pollen and it gets really congested down there, that's definitely going to be a swarming impulse. And so, if you're able to destroy all the swarm cells, but you don't actually fix the space problem inside of your hive, it's a good chance that they're probably going to attempt to swarm again as soon as possible. And then your last option, if you discover that this happened to your hive is do nothing.

[00:11:05]Maybe you're one of those beekeepers that is okay with your hive swarming.

[00:11:08]And a lot of guys are. They just let the bees figure it out all by themselves.

[00:11:12]They don't worry so much about the effect on honey production, etc. They're just going to let the bees figure it out. And that's an option for you, too.

[00:11:20]Maybe you've got a really great swarm trap because you watched my swarm trap video a few weeks ago and you know that you're going to catch your swarm anyway and so you're just going to let them swarm. You always have the option of not actually intervening and letting the bees figure it out all by themselves, which is not necessarily poor beekeeping. It's just depending on your personal approach and what your personal goals are when it comes to managing your hive. Why would you not want to just let them swarm? Well, probably the main reason would be honey production.

[00:11:50]Um honey production gets set back when all of your adult bees leave the hive with the old queen. And so, if honey production is not a super high value for you, then you can just let the bees figure it out. The other risk with just letting the bees figure it out is if the old queen leaves with all of the adult bees, then the remaining bees that are inside of the hive are going to have to raise another queen and that queen is going to uh emerge and after she emerges, develops for a few days, she's got to go out on her mating flights and return to the hive and uh begin to lay eggs. And there's always that chance that that queen doesn't make it back to the hive, either because she doesn't find it or she gets taken out by um another anim- by another bird or something like that. Another animal.

[00:12:33]That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but those are possibilities that she just doesn't make to the make it back to the hive. And then you've got to manage that hive and help them to requeen themselves. Hopefully you have resources from another hive where they can try that process again or you'll have to purchase a queen. So, the bottom line is if your bees swarm and then come back, it's a great warning sign. It's a great opportunity. It almost gives you like a second chance, another opportunity to try to manage that hive a little bit differently knowing what they're thinking cuz sometimes we don't always know what they're thinking inside of there. And so, this gives you that opportunity. So, with all that said, hey, let's jump into some footage of those bees coming back. I'm just going to let the camera play here for a minute. You can kind of hear my reaction on the in the background as I'm watching this take place.

[00:13:19]All right, now we are in full swarm mode here.

[00:13:22]Show you what this looks like.

[00:13:26]This is such cool footage.

[00:13:34]Now, look at what what do they have down here?

[00:13:37]I don't know what that is.

[00:13:44]Now, I'm not sure what's going on here because now, if you look, all the bees are returning back into the hive.

[00:13:53]I don't know if they changed their mind and decided to come back home.

[00:13:57]Um but this definitely looks like a change of direction.

[00:14:02]It does happen. Sometimes they'll swarm and come back.

[00:14:06]I've never had it happen that I've caught it before, but that's actually what this looks like to me.

[00:14:14]Look at them, see?

[00:14:15]They're going the other direction now.

[00:14:19]Back into the hive. Same thing down here.

[00:14:22]They're crowding back into the hive.

[00:14:25]I'm going to go ahead and remove the this uh give a little bit more space for them.

[00:14:36]You can see better what happens here.

[00:14:45]Did y'all change your mind?

[00:14:48]I'm really curious to see if I find the queen down here in on the ground cuz there's a lot of bees down here on the ground.

[00:15:10]They're very docile.

[00:15:12]And this is not one of my more docile hives.

[00:15:26]I hear the loud roar.

[00:15:32]All the swarm of tornado above me is all regathered back here on the front of the hive.

[00:15:39]Yeah, there's no swarm in a tree.

[00:15:40]Whatever they did, it looks like they changed their mind and are they're all now facing back into this area.

[00:15:48]It's literally only been about four or five minutes.

[00:15:51]Look, all the bees are off of the ground.

[00:15:54]Entrance is calm.

[00:15:56]Top entrance is calm.

[00:15:58]I am pretty sure that was an aborted swarm right there we saw.

[00:16:02]I know it happens. I've never seen it before myself. Very cool footage today.

[00:16:07]Wish I had my better camera. I just had my phone with me.

[00:16:10]But anyway, still very interesting today. Hope you enjoyed this. Hi, this is Ray and I'm glad that you joined me today. [music] Every single week I produce new beekeeping content for you.

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