# How far does the average swarm travel to its new home?



## FlowerPlanter

I know that a swam prefers to go at least 100 yards to a new location. 

But what is the maximum distance a swarm might travel for a nice new home?
How far do the scouts look?

What is the average distance they would travel?

Will they every pick the empty hive next store?

This might be hard to study but with all the things they have studied about bees surely someone has.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr

I keep swarm boxes all over my farm,and surrounding area, and yes, they will occassionally go into an empty box very near your active hives. They will go into empty boxes only a few yards away, and they will go into boxes several hundred yards away. Unfortunately, sometimes it is difficult to determine where they came from. Since I have had bees for more than 30 years in different locations, there are feral swarms in the area also. The new bees in the box might be from one of those colonies that swarmed. Difficult to be sure where they came from. 

I don't have any data to back this up, but, my experience has been the average distance would be 80 to 125 yards, with around 80 yards being most often. After that, it is quite likely that the swarm might have come from a feral colony, and not one of mine.

cchoganjr


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## jrbbees

Swarms often leave a hive and go to a holding location nearby and then sends out scouts to find a final location. When the the scouts find it and it is checked out and approved by more scouts they make their move to their final location.

While I was in Tanzania, there was a flat treeless plain where Kilimanjaro airport was located between Moshi and Arusha. It was over 15 miles wide without a single tree. Yet I have seen swarms moving directly across the center of it. How far they went, I don't know. But I imagine they will fly as far as they need to!


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr

jrbbees..... One way to verify what you have just said, is to trace the migration of AHB (africanized honey bees) and how far they proceed North, year after year. This tells us they do travel considerable distances between old and new locations. cchoganjr


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## Michael Bush

A quarter mile is typical. They go less and more depending on what's available.


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## BeeCurious

I ran across this chart which shows the distances traveled by 35 swarms.

http://ag.udel.edu/enwc/faculty/dmcaron/Apiology/apimages/graphii.gif


The chart was on one of Dewey Caron's web pages:

http://ag.udel.edu/enwc/faculty/dmcaron/Apiology/queenswarms.htm


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## beesintrees

Here's a source from a study you might find interesting. At the lower left corner of page 4 is a chart of sorth showing both the distance traveled by the studied swarms as well as the compass direction the swarms went.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFile...500/413-Villa--Swarming Behavior of Honey.pdf

Hummnnn, My link didn't turn blue on my sheet while typing. You might copy & paste if left click on the link doesn't take you there.

bnt


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