About this episode

This episode explores the aftermath of a honey bee swarm and the dynamics within the hive.

Season 8 Episode 10: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Left Behind: After the Honey Bee Rapture What happens inside a honey bee hive after a swarm leaves? In this episode of About Bees, Culture, and Curiosity , Ron Miksha follows the parent colony after half the bees depart with the old queen. The story explores why bees swarm, how many bees leave, what remains behind, why swarm queen cells often produce excellent queens, and how new research on queen-cell architecture suggests that bees do more than feed queens royal jelly - they build specialized royal nurseries. The episode also examines virgin queen piping, queen fights, afterswarms, mating flights, genetic turnover, honey crop losses, and the remarkable resilience of the old hive. Swarming may frustrate beekeepers, but for honey bees it is colony-level reproduction - one of nature's oldest and most successful survival strategies. Recorded in Calgary, June 2026 · Fang, Y. et al. Queen cell architecture shapes honey bee queen development. Nature. 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10534-3. PubMed record: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42236932/ · UC Riverside News. "How honeybees really crown their queens." June 3, 2026. ·…

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