the swarm

a swarm is the colony halved. the old queen leaves with perhaps half the workers and a quantity of honey she has had them carry in their stomachs as portable savings. they cluster on a branch — sometimes a fence, sometimes the lintel of a strange door — and wait while scouts investigate possible homes.

the cluster is calmer than it looks. without comb to defend, the swarm is famously unwilling to sting. an old country trick is to slide a sheet beneath it and lower the branch into a waiting box. the bees, finding themselves indoors, agree to live there.

the decision is made by a kind of vote: scouts return to the cluster and dance the directions of their finds. a site that gathers enough dancers becomes home. those who saw the wrong house quietly stop arguing. cousin process to the rumour bee's ledger.

watch for swarms in the garden on warm clover afternoons in late spring. the bee-keeper keeps an empty hive ready, half in hope.

— the lilac branch bent overnight. by three the box was full and the lilac stood upright again. — k.r.