# Strange "swarm" behavior - confused bees in garage



## Ricky Bee (Apr 16, 2011)

I got a call today from someone who needed some bees removed. When I got there, there were about maybe 200 bees flying around aimlessly in the guy's garage. The guy said that he had left the garage to do some weed whacking, and when he returned a half hour later, the bees were there. Both doors of the garage were fully open, and some were flying into and out of the garage, but didn't seem to be flying away, just hanging out and going back in. I looked all over for a cluster of bees, or an opening that they were going into and out of, but I found nothing. It seemed like most of them were flying around in one of the back corners of the garage, but none were landing or crawling around. They all seemed to be disoriented and disorganized - not the behavior of bees in a settled swarm or going in and out of an established hive.

I thought that maybe they were part of a swarm that somehow took a wrong turn and got lost. They weren't really trapped in there, though - they could have left through the big doors, so it seems like there must have been something attracting them. I questioned the guy, and there was nothing there like honey or anything to attract them.

My other thought was that they might be scouts. It seemed like an awful lot of scouts in one place, but I figured that maybe some other bees had been recruited by scouts to check it out.

Anyway, I told him there was nothing I could do to help him unless they either settled into a swarm cluster or the rest of the swarm showed up and took residence.

Any ideas?


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper (Mar 28, 2012)

Hmmmmm. I would think it odd that he had opened the garage doors (and apparently wasn't weed eating all that long) to return to find lots of bees around. I wouldn't think scouts would gather in that great of number in a short period of time.

I have to wonder if there wasn't some kind of scent that was attractive to the bees.

I would think about the only other thing you could have done was to bring a swarm trap near the garage and see what happens.


----------



## MelissaC (Sep 25, 2021)

Northwest PA Beekeeper said:


> Hmmmmm. I would think it odd that he had opened the garage doors (and apparently wasn't weed eating all that long) to return to find lots of bees around. I wouldn't think scouts would gather in that great of number in a short period of time.
> 
> I have to wonder if there wasn't some kind of scent that was attractive to the bees.
> 
> I would think about the only other thing you could have done was to bring a swarm trap near the garage and see what happens.


I see this was many years ago now but found this becauseI literally just had this same exact thing happen in my garage right now and looked it up and saw this thread!! I too left my garage open from doing yard work this morning, NO BEES, left it open and it’s now 4pm, walked out side and there’s literally like 100s of bees in my garage!! It looks like if you were to knock down an active beehive and the bees went crazy flying around!


----------

