MORE BEE SWARMS IN MISSOURI IS GOOD NEWS

Missouri bees are swarming more this year, and that could be good news for Missouri farmers.

"It's been a long time since there's been good news about Missouri bees, said Ray Nabors, an area extension entomologist for the University of Missouri. "We've had more swarm calls this year than we've had during the entire decade of the 1990s."

Honeybees are the most important pollinators for crops and are critical for many fruits and vegetables, especially after several years of general decline, Nabors said.

"Two-thirds of all the food a person eats is dependent on the honeybee for pollination," said Nabors, "You turn a colony of bees loose on a flowering crop and they won't quit until they have worked the entire crop."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated that 3.5 million acres of fruit, vegetables, fruit, oilseed and legume seed crops depend on insect pollination. Another 65 million acres derive from some insect pollination.

Honeybees throughout the Midwest have been decimated by mites throughout the 1990s. Bootheel cotton and soybean farmers have lost as much $2 million in some recent years.

More swarms have been reported in a number of Midwest states, said Nabors.

"This is recharging our feral (wild) bee population," said Nabors. One or two colonies of bees an acre are usually necessary for pollination. This translates into 30,000 to 60,000 bees.

A number of reasons have been listed for the return of the swarming bees in the wild, including a warm, dry spring; an early, heavy nectar flow; and increased research into mite resistance.

"We've had some rain this spring, but not too much," said Nabors. "When it rains, the bees don't work, and the nectar tends to be thinner when there's ample rainfall. So the conditions have been pretty ideal for swarming."

Nabors said bees swarm when the colony gets too large and the bees need more food. Then, the queen bee can't control all of the workers because there are too many of them, and the queen will leave with a portion of the workers to start a new colony.

They'll often find a tree branch and just stay there for a couple of days until the scout bees find a protected site to build a new hive.

A swarm takes no more than a few days to find a nest cavity. Nabors said people who see a bee swarm should realize the creatures are not likely to sting unless they are disturbed. Bees in a swarm are full of honey. It's uncomfortable for them to bend over and sting with full stomachs.

"However, they will sting if disturbed," said Nabors.

Meanwhile, domesticated bees have developed some resistance to the tracheal mite, and commercial beekeepers take a variety of measures to control Varroa mites.

"Those who didn't are pretty much out of business," Nabors said.

The abundance of natural habitat -- "tree holes and wall voids" -- has helped rekindle the bee population in the wild, Nabors said.