What exactly is Bee Bearding? Is it:
A. When a bee collects pollen under its chin resembling a human beard?
B. When bees gather outside the hive entrance in a shape resembling a beard?
C. Bees who are exceptionally fuzzy?
D. Hipsters who keep tiny beehives in their beards?
If you answered B then you’re right!
Zach trying out the new bee suit.
We went to check our bees this past weekend and they were bearding at the hive entrance. It’s quite a remarkable site! The bees cluster in a swarm like shape, holding on to one another and it looks as though the hive box has a “beard” of bees at its “chin”.
Beard shaped swarm at the hive entrance.
There are two main reasons bees might beard. The first is to cool down the hive in warm weather, the second is if they are getting ready to swarm. It’s important to find out the reason behind this behavior because if your hive is getting ready to swarm, you might loose half (or more) of your colony. Here are some signs that will help you determine why your bees are bearding.
Summer Heat
This is what we expected of our hive since it was a very warm day. Here’s a few questions to help you decide if warmth is behind the bearding.
1. Is it an exceptionally warm day?
2. Are there bees lined up at the entrance faced the same direction beating their wings?
3. Is their ample, unused room in your hive?
If you answer yes to these questions then the bearding activity is most likely heat related.
1. The bees are leaving the hive to cool it off. Too many bees buzzing around inside creates a lot of extra heat.
The bees are fanning the hive entrance to cool it down.
2. The bees at the entrance faced the same direction are “fanning”. They beat their wings to try to cool the temperature of the hive.
3. If your bees have enough room in the hive to spread out, then chances are they aren’t too crowded and most likely aren’t looking to find a new home.
Swarming
Swarming is another reason bees might beard at the hive entrance. It important to find out if this is the reason behind the beard, because you may be able to prevent loosing half or more of your colony.
1. Is the hive crowded?
2. Are the temperatures relatively similar to those when the bees weren’t bearding?
3. Are there very active bees buzzing around the bearding bees?
4. Are bees returning from the field and not going in the hive, but instead joining or communicating with the beard?
5. Are their queen cells in your hive?
If you answered yes to most of these questions then you may have a hive that is ready to swarm.
1. Our hive has been so prolific this year that even though our bees were demonstrating many of the heat related bearding behavior, we decided to open the hive just to be sure they had enough room. Which they did, but they’re filling it up fast. In fact, we were even able to harvest a quart of honey while the hive was open.
2. If the temperatures haven’t changed dramatically, then there’s no reason for your bees to suddenly need to cool off the hive.
3. A lot of communication takes place when a hive is ready to swarm. The active bees buzzing around the beard are letting the swarm in on the plan of the move.
4. The bees returning to the swarm are most likely scouts, who go off looking for a possible place for a new home and come back to communicate that to the colony.
Looking for queen cells.
5. Queen cells are larger and are arranged vertical to the ground. Presence of these cells means that the hive is preparing to split.
If this is the case of your hive then it’s time to split your hive. At this point, they are in swarm mode and even if you add a box and give them more room, they might be beyond the point of recognizing this as an alternative option to swarming.
It usually takes about three days for the bees to prepare to swarm from the time you first see bearding.
For more information on splitting your hive before your bees swarm, visit my post. Splitting the Hive.
Have your bees ever bearded? What was the reason behind their activity? Share with the community by leaving a comment below or visit our Facebook Page.
10 Comments
Hello! My husband and I were collecting honeys off of our hives last night and since we don’t use a trap to keep the bees from going in to the honeys when we collect, we had to gentle brush them off. It was a pretty warm evening around 75 degrees. When we got done and were putting the empty boxes with new frames back onwe noticed that a lot of our bees had bearded on the front of the hive. It may have been the warm weather but I thought maybe it was from use pulling the honey off and disrupting the hive.
Did you ever get an answer for this please? Ours are doing this now.
Our Warre hive was bearding just like the pictures in your article. On inspection, they were crowded and it was also very hot outside. I can understand why they wanted to go out on the porch. We added two boxes and all looks ok now.
I would like to see an article on how to move an active bee hive. We want to move that Warre hive (4 boxes tall) to the other side of the yard, but don’t want to mess with the bees homing instinct. So if you can, please give us an article on how to move a beehive across the yard. Thanks.
First time to notice my bees bearding on out side hive. Should i drill hole upper super or ck fullness of hive. Its one month old. Temp 80’s
My favorite farm to follow. Your articles are to the point! Thanks again. Leilani MisBEEhaving Bee’s in Mississippi
I have bees that are bearding on a hanging chime on my back porch.
What should I do?
Thanks,
Larry
Hi, I recently discovered a ‘wild’ hive (bee tree as they were once called) in an oak the ent. hole 20-25′ above the ground…….the day I discovered it was only because the bee were swarming, unmistakably, the NOISE. Since then the bees, probably because of very warm n humid weather have been ‘bearding’ all around the ent. hole. Even at night they stay out on the tree around the ent. hole, even though temperatures cooled to the mid 60’s n there was even some rain. Your info on this indicates it’s to cool the hive, or they’re ‘ getting ready to swarm’……Could they be getting ready to ‘swarm’ again after only a few days. It’s not hot now, n forecast to stay relatively mild compared to what it has been……
Thank you for the info on boarding, I was worried something was wrong. Almost 100° here
Hello, yesterday afternoon noon I noticed several thousand bees flying around the bee yard in front of their hive. I also noticed a large gathering of bees between the inner and outer covers, along the sunny side of the hive and underneath and at the entrance of the hive. The day and night had been cool, in the mid 50’s during the day. Suddenly the sun came out and the bee yard area warmed to around 64 degrees. This is when the hive emptied out. The bees that were on the hive box were wiggling and frantically fanning with a lot going on underneath the landing and bottom board (screened). This lasted for about 30 minutes and 2 more hours before they all returned back into the hive. After all settled, I checked the feeding area ( top of upper hive box) and all apperied “normal”. This hive is a nuc starter that has been in place for 1 month. My hive is an 8 frame with 2 brood boxes. Based on what information I have obtained, I believe this event occurred for temperature control? I am new first year keeping bees and loving every minute of it. Thank you in advance for any information.
HI! My name is Don. I’m a disabled Vietnam Veteran. I just wondered if there is any free classes of beekeeping. I am very interesting to learn about beekeeping. Hope you will be able to connect me to some free classes. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours
Eppie