With bees swarming earlier this year, here's what you should know

May 1—Jim Blackburn experiences serenity in a situation few others would.

"I find that it's very calm in the middle of a swarm of bees," he said.

Fascinated by bees for many years, the Hempfield man has been keeping the winged insects and corralling swarms of them for others for two decades. He responds to anywhere from five to 30 calls each year for swarm removals.

There can be between 10,000 and 40,000 bees in a swarm, but Blackburn isn't afraid of handling them — as long as he does it with care.

He's been known to scoop bees by hand into a hive box.

"You have to be very gentle and move slowly," he said. "You don't want to pinch the bees or they'll sting."

This year, unseasonably high April temperatures have triggered an earlier bounty of nectar for area bees and an earlier start to the swarm season — which more typically begins in May.

"When it gets up to between 80 and 83 degrees, the bees come out," Blackburn said. "It varies. We had a late winter last year, and it killed a lot of bees."

Largely self-taught, Blackburn has become a go-to resource in the local beekeeping community for handling swarms. He credits his know-how to his mentor, the late Bob Free, former pastor of Harrold Zion Lutheran Church in Hempfield. Free started beekeeping early in his career, when he was serving a congregation in Kittanning.

Blackburn advises residents to seek help from a beekeeper to promptly remove swarming bees before they set up house in an unwanted place.

Left to their own devices, bees may swarm on anything from a traffic cone or fire hydrant to an automobile as a growing hive divides and sends a portion of its members packing, according to Blackburn.

A swarm may form a new hive in a bush or tree, but it could potentially take shelter in the walls of an unsecured building.

"One of the biggest things about houses is to have all the soffit and fascia sealed up," Blackburn said. "The hive sends scouts out, and they go look for a new home. They need a large cavity to move into.

"If they find a nice, warm cavity in a wall, floor or ceiling. all those bees will move in within a matter of minutes. I don't take them out of houses anymore. It gets to be more of a construction job."

Blackburn finds capturing bee swarms — at least those living outdoors — to be a fun challenge. At the same time, he said, he's helping to rescue them and take them to other properties where they will be welcomed.

"Some people save cats and dogs," he said. "I save bees."

Blackburn recently was called to help contain swarming bees in the yard of nearby resident Callie Stinebiser.

Stinebiser said her family was well aware of a wild hive of bees living in a tree in their yard and had prepared a hive box, expecting they might someday want to relocate the insects. But the bees took the initiative, partially swarming onto a nearby fence, and another neighbor recommended that Stinebiser call Blackburn.

"There were thousands of bees flying around our front yard," Stinebiser said. "They started landing on the fence, and they stayed there for two to three hours. That's when I called Jim."

A novice in dealing with bees, Stinebiser "was trying to be calm" but "kind of freaked out. They were walking on me. I had them on my pants and my T-shirt."

Blackburn "was scooping them up with his hands," Stinebiser said. "But I wasn't scooping them up."

"For the swarm on the fence, we had to get those bees and put them on frames and put them in a box," Blackburn said. "We got the queen bee in the box, and the others all followed."

Stinebiser wasn't sure whether she was going to keep the box of bees or find a new home for them. But, she said, "I'm definitely buying a beekeeper's suit."

Less likely to sting

Generally, when bees are swarming, they're full of honey and aren't as likely to sting, Blackburn said. Still, over the years, he admits, he's been stung maybe 200 times.

"Once you put the bees in a (hive) box and they're established and you open it up on a cold, rainy day, you will get stung," he said. Lacking the weather conditions ideal for collecting nectar, "They're looking for something to do, and you're usually it."

Beekeeper Joe Zgurzynski produces honey and raises queen bees at his family's Country Barn Farm in O'Hara . He mentors other beekeepers as an instructor affiliated with the Eastern Apicultural Society of North America. Sometimes, he has to handle swarms, usually on his own property.

Zgurzynski has contained two swarms so far this season.

"Mostly, swarms happen in May and June," he said. "But I've caught swarms in August and September.

"It's an earlier season this year. Things are blooming now that usually bloom three to four weeks later."

Under ideal conditions, Zgurzynski said, a swarm will gather on a spot no more than 15 feet off the ground as the bees collectively decide, based on information brought back by scouts, where to establish their new hive.

"They need a space of about 3 cubic feet," he said.

Swarms will move only during daylight hours, he noted, because "they navigate by the position of the sun."

Zgurzynski said buildings should be safe from bee infiltration as long as there are no exterior gaps of three-eighths of an inch or larger, "particularly where the roof meets the siding."

Splitting hives

Experienced beekeepers try to keep ahead of swarm activity in their own operations by proactively thinning and dividing their hives when they become too large.

That includes Chad Seibel of Mt. Pleasant Township, who manages 11 hives at various locations and sometimes joins Blackburn on hive removal calls. Seibel is president of the Laurel Highlands Beekeepers Association, which keeps bees for training purposes in a secured space on the grounds of the Regional Family YMCA of Laurel Highlands in East Huntingdon .

After overwintering, Seibel said, a queen bee becomes active, laying between 1,000 and 1,500 eggs per day. Those eggs can grow into new worker bees in about 21 days, or prospective queen bees in just 16 days.

"When the hives get too crowded, you have to alleviate swarming by giving them room to grow," he said.

One of the most challenging tasks Blackburn has completed has been removing a swarm that had taken up residence in the coils of a car's suspension at an automobile auction lot.

"They were pretty tough to get out," he said. "They were wrapped up in the coils. I had to work them out with my hands."

Since there was no electricity available to suck the bees out with a vacuum, Blackburn had to use his hands and a special beekeeper's brush to painstakingly extract the winged insects from the car.

Precious pollinators

Blackburn doesn't keep bees to produce honey, but he values them for their vital role in pollinating plants.

"Everything in our garden needs pollinated," he said, in addition to his family's fruit trees and berry bushes. To give the bees additional sustenance, he said, "we let all the wildflowers and dandelions grow."

Seibel treats his hives to help protect them against infestations of mites, which feed on bee larvae.

"If the honeybees die, we're done," he said. "They pollinate a third of the food we eat."

Though he keeps some bees of his own, Blackburn usually gives swarms he has captured to fellow beekeepers who want to shore up their series of hives.

"Most beekeepers are happy to come and get them," Zgurzynski said. "It's free bees."

Joe Festa keeps bees at his Festa Family Farm in Plum and has offered a swarm removal service for about a decade.

"Please do not spray with insecticides or water as this can kill the bees," Festa advises those who may encounter an outdoor swarm on their property. "Calling a beekeeper to remove them is the safest option for a honeybee swarm. If a beekeeper cannot remove them in time, give them space and they will move on within a day or so."

Once it becomes established in a space, usually in a tree, he said, "A hive of honeybees can grow very large and create a time-consuming encounter for beekeepers. The entire hive, including honeycomb, honey, pollen and the bees themselves, must be removed, or another swarm can move in."

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Study: Mites, pesticides, weather threaten bees

A study led by Penn State researchers that was published online in December 2022 indicates U.S. honeybee colony losses over the last five years primarily have been related to several factors, including the presence of parasitic mites, extreme weather events and nearby pesticides.

In one year alone, between April 2019 and April 2020, one study reported a 43% colony loss in honeybees across the country.

In the recently published study, researchers found that colony losses typically occurred between January and March, likely related to challenges bees face while overwintering.

Colony loss also was related to the presence of parasitic mites, Varroa destructor, which reproduce in honeybee colonies, weaken the bees and potentially expose them to viruses.

The study results "inform actions that beekeepers could take to help circumvent these stressors and protect their colonies, including treatments for the Varroa mite‚ especially in areas of weather instability," according to beekeeper Luca Insolia, first author of the study and a visiting graduate student in the Department of Statistics at Penn State at the time of the research. "Beekeepers could also consider strategies to move their colonies to areas with high food availability or away from nearby pesticides or to provide supplementary food during certain seasons or months with frequent extreme weather events."

Jeff Himler is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jeff by email at jhimler@triblive.com or via Twitter .