Swallow this!

[Julian]

The most efficient exit for some of my hives is up and over the trees/shrubs around them. There is a "low level" exit which is much more awkward and difficult to find as its only a 3ft gap.

Yesterday I saw a Swallow dip and take out one of the bees as she left the apiary. The others instantly started taking the low level route out to forage.

Today I saw the same thing happen again with several Swallows taking bees in flight over the apiary but this time one of the hives came out on mass and chased off everything with feathered wings, including Swallows, Doves and Starlings. Later in the afternoon bees were still patrolling on mass and the Swallows gave them a wide berth.

I'm wondering how this communication took place and would an alarm pheromone be sensed this far away (approx. 20ft up).

[gavin]

Bees do seem to plan attacks sometimes. The Asian Honeybee's strategy for coping with Asian Hornet is one where the bees prepare themselves then they all attack the hornet together. I suppose that there are individual honeybees that have spotted the threat, and they rouse the army. Whether in the case of your swallows the bees used an odour trail or just followed by eye I wouldn't know. Sounds like an impressive reaction though. I could sympathise with the swallows when I was taking off some honey at the heather yesterday.

[The Drone Ranger]

they don't have much trouble raising an "army" to deal with me anyway :)

[Trog]

That's not something I've seen, but I wish our bees would deal in a similar way with the deer that hang around the apiary ... and the garden ... and the veg plot.

[gavin]

They're not daft. They know that deer are no particular threat, but swooping swallows, me and Droney do fall into that category. I have six up at the heather. The first five were difficult last Saturday, but manageable. The last went ballistic and burrowed inside my jacket and that of one of the couple of beginners with me. So we retreated and I tried again last night. Again it was scarily nasty. This one looks carnie-like (more so than the others) but had a near Amm mother so it must be some form of hybrid.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Gavin
You might do some wing plots on the wild ones
compared with the gentler types
I did plots on a couple this year but the best and the worst were both pretty much the same admixture
Even R.O.B. Manley all those years ago (30's) was writing about reciprocal crosses giving different outcomes
He says the hanging on to bad tempered honey producers is at the root of bad drones
I did it myself this year annoyingly (so guilty as charged) but it won't happen again :)
I think we will be seeing some Italian blood as well so who knows where we will be next year
Next step AI so get your piggy bank

[Julian]

Just to set a clearer picture , I would not categories the hive that saw off the Swallows as aggressive. Quite the opposite. They are steady on the comb during inspection and quite happy for me and the better half to tend plants around them within a couple of feet before they say "hello". Even then it’s a case of a visual inspection or a ping, we back off by a yard or so and we both go about our business.

[The Drone Ranger]

Just to set a clearer picture , I would not categories the hive that saw off the Swallows as aggressive. Quite the opposite. They are steady on the comb during inspection and quite happy for me and the better half to tend plants around them within a couple of feet before they say "hello". Even then it’s a case of a visual inspection or a ping, we back off by a yard or so and we both go about our business.

Sorry Julian

Went off on a tangent there. wasn't implying your bees were akin to africanised killer swarm bees or anything
(although the swallows may be both africanised and bee killers)

Would you characterise your well behaved bees as hybrids ?
There are a lot of opinions regarding bee temperament and crossing

Apart from pure(ish) Carniolan I have never handled any bees other than the usual hybrid/cross/admixture bees which abound in the amateur beekeeping world
(commercially they mostly rely on Carniolans)

[Julian]

The best description is local mongrels.

Acquired from many locations, all reasonably local (hence the local). A swarm here, a queen there with no specific breeding program other than personal opinion and an attempt to introduce diversity (hence the mongrels).

I thing this is the way for most hobby beekeepers.