A number of years ago while living on the very eastern end of Cuyahoga County near the Polo Field, we were visited by a large swarm of honey bees right outside the west side of our house. It all happened so fast. We noticed a cloud gathering – a cloud of something which we couldn’t identify. I had several young children at the time and we all went out to watch. It seemed like only a matter of minutes before this cloud grew from a small group to the size of a small rain cloud! By the time I realized what was happening, they were hovering level with the second floor of the house, several feet away from the siding where my daughter’s bedroom was located. I called a local beekeeper I was acquainted with and he rushed over as quickly as possible. But it was too late. The bees had already made their way into a wall between the siding and the drywall of her room. You could hear them buzzing away in their newly chosen home which also happened to be the wall her bed was against! That particular beekeeper didn’t have the equipment to extract bees, so after another phone call, a freshly cut hole in the drywall, and a couple hours of gentle ‘bee vacuuming’, the bees were removed. And we were left with the hole in the wall.
Swarming occurs primarily in the spring over a period of two to three weeks when the queen bee leaves the colony with a large group of worker bees and forms a new colony. Roughly 60% of the worker bees will leave the original colony with the old queen. These swarms can have tens of thousands of bees in them!
If you happen to be on their radar as a prime location to settle into, it may be a bit disturbing, to say the least, as they can very quickly take up residence, resulting in quite a lot of damage to your home, including cutting holes in walls, as we found out! Do you know anyone you could call?
There just happens to be a number of local folks who belong to The Portage County Beekeepers Association and who have made themselves available for just such occasions!
Their website states, “The Portage County Beekeepers Association is an organization for the novice and professional beekeepers in the Portage County Ohio area. Joining is easy. For just $5.00 per year you can enjoy all the benefits of our organization including our meetings, Field Day and Summer Picnic.” This year’s picnic was on July 21 at West Branch State Park.
You can find a list of people on their website who are on the ‘call list’ for swarms HERE. If you suspect a swarm has gathered, best to have that list handy and get some over ASAP!