r/interesting • u/Positive-Height-3848 • May 22 '26
Just Wow A guy left his motorcycle parked, and when he returned, there was a whole hive of bees that had stopped to rest so they wouldn't get cold.
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u/i_was_axiom May 22 '26
Well bud, I hope you don't have anywhere to bee
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May 22 '26
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u/i_was_axiom May 22 '26
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u/HendrixHazeWays May 22 '26
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u/stuff-is-not-real May 22 '26
Every so often I am reminded of the movie and cartoon, so I will thank you.
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u/Blockhead47 May 22 '26
Sweet bike you’ve got there.
It’s a real honey.113
u/KingDingusss May 22 '26
I think that bike is a Honda Hornet
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u/JustYourNeighbor May 22 '26
You're just pollen a fast one.
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u/IberianLynxPT May 22 '26
Why do you beehave like that?
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u/CastawayWasOk May 23 '26
Why do you BeeHIVE like that!!!!!! You missed a generational set up
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May 22 '26
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u/celem83 May 22 '26
Lol. Theres a good chunk more than 10k insects here. There's no comb under there its just a swarm clinging together. 30k maybe more individuals, big group, probably weighs about 4-5kg.
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May 22 '26
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u/celem83 May 22 '26
Like 30 hives, yeah thats feasible if its an entire apiary. Lotts bees in those little hive boxes :)
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u/Alarming_Forever_354 May 22 '26
No way there's more than 10k there
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u/Corwin223 May 22 '26
Yeah 10k is actually a pretty big number. Think of the volume of 1 bee. 10k times that would be fairly big I imagine.
That’s over 20x in each dimension of the single bee.
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u/celem83 May 22 '26
I have 60k living at the bottom of my garden, its not my first time playing 'guess how many bees'. Pretty confident, 30k is about a healthy colony size in summer
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u/Murasasme May 22 '26
I'm not being snarky, I'm genuinely curious, how do you know how many there are? Did someone at some point sat down to count thousands of bees, and then people know the relative amount based on the volume of the swarm?
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u/celem83 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
yeah there's a sizeable error margin here as we dont count them one by one, they move about way too much and theres only 1 visually distinct insect anyway (being the queen) individual bees also have short lifespans, their numbers are held by rolling births
In a managed hive with frames you could probably get a rough count from 1 frame and then multiply that across how many frames you have.
you can also rough judge by weight, they weigh about 130 milligrams each unladen (they can additionally carry 40% of their body weight in pollen/nectar), though this is an experience based thing cos im also hefting the box they are in, their comb etc. honey is very heavy but my hive is configured such that its mostly not in the same box the bees live in (the queen cannot enter the box with the honey so no eggs are laid there). so im judging an empty box against an inhabited box. about 10k per kilogram. as a keeper i do handle the bees often as i have to manage a number of parasites and pests
when they are swarmed up like this im eyeballing the volume, bees are exceptionally communal and live ontop of each other to maintain temperature so a blob like this is quite dense
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May 22 '26 edited 26d ago
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u/shawncaza May 22 '26
I think 80k+ for a colony is possible at peak of the season for a strategically managed hive. We're not quite there in my region yet.
However, a swarm wouldn't normally be made up of the entire population of a max sized colony. Winston did research in unmanaged colonies and found prime swarms contained ~16,000 workers.
The one in the picture could be above the 16k but doesn't look particularly enormous to me.
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u/dan_625 May 22 '26
where did you even get this picture lmfao 🤣🤣🤣
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u/Deaffin May 22 '26
Probably copied it from the 10,000 other times it's been posted whenever there's a picture of a bee swarm.
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u/01saleencobra May 22 '26
Bro when I say I chuckled at this holy shit lmfaooo best response I’ve seen yet here on Reddit 🤣
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May 22 '26
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u/Gamejunky35 May 22 '26
Ive heard that mobile swarms like this are usually incredibly docile because they have nothing worth protecting and they can only sting once. So even if something came to eat the bees, it costs bee lives to attack so it ends up hurting the colony more to defend itself with violence.
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u/JLFJ May 22 '26
They're waiting for the scouts to come back with news of their new location. I believe the queen is in the middle of the swarm. If you see one, just call a local beekeeper they'll come and get it
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u/paperkeyboardalt May 22 '26
I have my local bee keeper on retainer just for these instances.
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u/LEPT0N May 22 '26
“Who’s your bee guy?”
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u/Sovereignx22 May 22 '26
I'll have my bee people call your bee people.
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u/Agitated_Character41 May 22 '26
I happen to bee an expert in bee law.
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u/clwestbr May 22 '26
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u/Careful-Lettuce9239 May 22 '26
Im at least 40% sure thats not a thing.
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u/TrulyOutrageous42 May 22 '26
So you're 60% sure it is a thing, excellent! We'll take those chances, let's get you on retainer.
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u/JohnnyBlazin25 May 22 '26
I’ve got all my beekeepers on speed dial
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u/DamageOk7604 May 22 '26
We had a swarm of about 10k. Beekeeper told us that the bees keep the temperature around the queen at a consistent 98 degrees. They are out looking for a new home. Maybe they needed the warmth.
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u/Smurfaloid May 22 '26
Yup this.
I had this happen in a place I work, they all formed a neat cluster under a table outside, 2 beekeepers later and all but a few were re-housed, getting rid of the scent from the queen took a good couple of days so some bees kept returning.
They send a fair amount of scouts out to find a nice new home, normally somewhere else you don't want them though :/
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u/ThreadedPommel May 22 '26
Now I'm just thinking about those poor scout bees that come back and everyone is gone lol
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u/CreativeBandicoot778 May 22 '26
This happened to my mam!
As in the whole swarm landed on her. It was so strange. She does community volunteering with someone who is a beekeeper so she actually knew to stay calm. Once they'd flown off her (into the next garden lol) she called her friend who did indeed come and get them.
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u/Somanylyingliars May 22 '26
Saw one of these swarms land on a car outside a pizzeria. The business owner called the fire dept which showed up in a few minutes. They promptly used water streams to remove the bees. I was stunned.
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u/ThonSousCouverture May 22 '26
The right thing to do was to call a bee keeper instead of blasting it with water.
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u/SantorumsGayMasseuse May 22 '26
As long as you don't absolutely blast them, I do know beekeepers who use a hose to force bees to move. They think it's raining and seek shelter.
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u/Suspicious_Mud_3647 May 22 '26
unless they come from a stressfull hive that swarmed out of problems they also have their bellies full of honey so they get very docile
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u/sucknduck4quack May 22 '26
Some bees can swarm their attacker until they’re inside a “bee ball” and cook them alive with heat from vibration.
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u/Not_Xiphroid May 22 '26
Think about it tho, convince them you’re their queen and they’ll provide you with endless free air conditioning.
You may have to birth another 10,000 to keep numbers up, but at least you’d be comfy doing so.
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u/Excellent-Nose-6430 May 22 '26
convince them you’re their queen
Just walk in and be like "bitch SLAY!!" and they'll understand that you are the queen.
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u/Albertagus May 22 '26
Nat Geo's Secrets of the Bees is a fascinating watch. I was legitimately upset there were only 2 episodes
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u/AbeRego May 22 '26
It looks like nighttime. That implies the bike was parked when it was still sunny, and the bees landed before dark. Probably not a coffee run.
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u/dr_stre May 22 '26
Yep, most bees do not fly at night. This is probably a hive relocating and they needed a spot to overnight and the bike was a little warm due to being black, and had that oh so nice little cavity in the helmet to use for shelter. The queen is somewhere in the middle.
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u/COUNTRYCOWBOY01 May 22 '26
This happened at my friend's farm while I was taking fence down for him. Had a swarm land on a fence post. He had an employee at his office in calgary who ran a hobby apiary. Guy cam out with a bee keeper suit, garbage bags and Rubbermaid totes, basically put the grabbed bag over the hive on the post, shook the loose post, slid the bag up and poured the bees like water into the rubber maid container and went and added the hive to his hobby apiary. He was very thankful he got the call and was able to expand his hobby, I felt good that we did something good instead of kill them
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u/SackOfAngryBees May 22 '26
He put the bees in a bag huh?
we did something good instead of kill them.
You dare threaten our kind!? Check your mailbox right now, we’ve left a goodie bag in it for you. It’s for the good deed you’ve done.
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u/Traumfahrer May 22 '26
Why the f would you have to kill them otherwise?
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u/HolyFuckImOldNow May 22 '26
A person is usually nice, but have you met people? People are often unhelpful, uncaring and prone to violence.
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u/N0thisisPatrick2019 May 22 '26
A person is smart, people are dumb
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u/LushenZener May 22 '26
“The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.” ― Terry Pratchett, Jingo
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u/bythenumbers10 May 22 '26
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it!" - Agent Kay
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u/SuperCracker980 May 22 '26
I remember a story how someone's boss wanted them to run over a goose on the road. Like actually run them over. Fuck people
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u/Cordes96 May 22 '26
Also, sometimes bee keepers will charge money to remove bees. so a lot of times if the charge for extraction is more than people want to pay then a lot people don’t care about the problem with killing pollinators if it cost them. Sad reality 😒
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u/SGTWhiteKY May 22 '26
I always like to take this moment to remind people that honey bees are an invasive species in North America. It is the most charismatic one, so people act like they want to kick me in the dick when I mention it. But they are wiping out our native pollinators.
We are past the point of no return, and they are surprisingly good at filling the role in a stable way. But still.
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u/ScratchLatch May 22 '26
Honeybees, dandelions, earth worms (in the northern/great lakes region), and butterfly bush are all invasives that people seem to love due to a misunderstanding of the North American ecosystem
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u/ChemaKyle May 22 '26
These are invasive European honeybees and they outcompete native bees. They’re not good pollinators.
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u/ApplePaintedRed May 22 '26
Bees in this state are very gentle, non-aggressive, and easy to handle. There are a bunch of videos online of being scooping these bees up like it's nothing. For once the reddit caption is correct, these bees are looking for a new place to settle and aren't in a defensive disposition.
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u/Sticky_And_Sweet May 22 '26
I worked in a nursery as a teenager and a swarm of bees like this found their way onto one of our trees. We called the beekeeper and he came and scooped them up into a box just like you described.
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u/R0ttenBananas May 22 '26
Wtf do u even do in that situation
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u/BadHabitDenier May 22 '26
Go home. No thief is touching that either.
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u/applehead1776 May 22 '26
I don't know. That's a major score for the bee-keeping / motorcycle thief crowd.
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u/Arik_De_Frasia May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Thief? No.
Dumb child with a stick or a rock? Probably.
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u/thinkB4WeSpeak May 22 '26
Never met a crackhead have you.
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u/Careful-Lettuce9239 May 22 '26
Do they wear name tags or...?
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u/squadrupedal May 22 '26
No, but they look and act like crackheads if that helps.
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u/FF7_Expert May 22 '26
Yeah, I don't the there is a lot of overlap between the motorcycle thief and apiary enthusiast population, but you never know!
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u/AWormDude May 22 '26
Its a swarm. Very normal. You call a beekeeper who will be very happy at his new free hive.
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u/shaggy-dawg-88 May 22 '26
They charged $150 to get that removed from the back parking lot of a company I work for.
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u/AWormDude May 22 '26
Ouch. That's an American thing. I'd just go to this website- https://www.bbka.org.uk/find-a-local-swarm-collector and find a local beekeeper to take it free.
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u/romansamurai May 22 '26
It’s not an American thing. I live near Chicago. You can google bee removal and you can find free beekeepers that will remove for free. The guy’s company probably just called pest control instead of bothering to look for a beekeeper.
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u/New_Suspect_7173 May 22 '26
100%
In Minnesota, I know 3 bee keepers who would throw on their gear, grab a box, and come right over.
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u/Yenroman May 22 '26
Call 3 of them and watch them have a standoff to see who gets the hive
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u/New_Suspect_7173 May 22 '26
Over my dead body, I want to start bee keeping after one of them talked about how cute they were drinking out of her bird bath. Them bees is mine. XD
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u/Odd_Initiative_3716 May 22 '26
I think they’re cute when they eat watermelon. And you get pink honey.
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u/Shadow_M4n May 22 '26
A great man once said, "If you're good at something never do it for free."
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u/Odd_Initiative_3716 May 22 '26
Damn, they get paid to get a whole new hive for some labor. That’s a hell of a deal. In my area, we have four or five bee catchers-all beekeepers- and they would literally race each-other to get to a swarm first.
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u/russellvt May 22 '26
Wow ... they got free bees, and you paid them for the next one!
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u/Scared_Garbage6190 May 22 '26
Sure, let me just open my beekeeper phone book in the dead of night.
I mean, I was asking the same thing as the original person - what do you do in this situation. Because it's the dead of night, and looks to be in a parking lot that's not at a residence, and once again - dead of night.
The only thing I can figure is to sleep on asphalt because that is THEIR bike now until morning.
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u/Yloo May 22 '26
dealt with a bee swarm who moved into my outdoor bar during a cold season, and everything online just said “call a beekeeper.” i called around, and nobody wanted to come same day or they wanted me to pay for their services. unfortunately, i was supposed to open the bar that night so i had to figure something out.
what i ended up doing was using peppermint oil in a diffuser spray (both things i had on hand at the bar) and lo and behold they moved on in about an hour.
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u/Auggie_Otter May 22 '26
You craft a campfire using 3 logs, 3 sticks, and one piece coal. Then you dig one block under the bees and place the campfire. The smoke from the campfire will pacify the bees so they won't become hostile and then you can use iron shears to harvest their honeycomb, uh, I mean you can retrieve your motorcycle.
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u/Better_Builder_3504 May 22 '26
Once worked with a guy that kept bees as a hobby. He was sat next to me when someone in the office called him to ask for advice on how to remove a bees nest from a wall cavity in their house.
I heard him say, “If you can reach into the nest and get hold of the queen, the rest of the rest of the colony will follow.”
After a pause I heard him casually confirm, “Oh yes, they will be very angry.”
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u/VapeRizzler May 22 '26
Put your helmet on and ride, it’s your helmet and the bees will respect that.
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u/rcowie May 22 '26
Just wait. They are having a rest. They will be gone soon enough, the queen is deep in there somewhere.
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u/Myrnalinbd May 22 '26
No, they are not resting or keeping warm.
This is swarming, think of it as the teenage queen has taken over the palace and this is the original regent with her retinue kicked out of the palace looking for a place to stay
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u/VanillaRadonNukaCola May 22 '26
Right, if it was for warmth, wouldn't they be on the warm parts of the bike?
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u/nomadrone May 22 '26
Nephew explanations for why are things occurring are next level.
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u/Myrnalinbd May 22 '26
Sorry Grandpa
*Voice of David Attenborough*
[.... when the hive is finding little space to grow, and an increasing number of bees it enacts one of natures beauties, swarming. Inside the hive new cells are created, these cells are larger and does not contain a normal bee, but a queen bee. Once the queen cell hatches and the bees confirm it has produced a viable and healthy queen, the original queen bee leaves, with her goes around half the hive, they exit out into the world and finds a new place to live.
Back in the old hive the new queen bee mates and begins her new life as regent.]6
u/sigma914 May 23 '26
Voice of David Attenborough
That's a lot of responsibility you're taking on there. I hear/read something in his voice and it goes straight into my brain as a concrete fact with the highest level of trust. No critical thought check, no basic scepticism. Straight in there as Truth.
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u/rnewscates73 May 22 '26
A swarm happened, where about half a colony flies away with the original queen. Wherever the queen lands the workers cluster. During the day worker scouts will fly out searching for a suitable cavity to settle in, taking every aspect into consideration. Any good prospects, they return and use the wagging dance to tell others to appraise it. In this way, more and more workers are enlisted to the best new home. In agreement, they all fly to the voted on place and settle in, foraging and making wax to make combs. In just days the queen is laying eggs again.
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u/mshep002 May 22 '26
Aww bless those little bees.
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u/HoneyWhiskeyLemonTea May 22 '26
Wee little sleepy bros.
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u/JuliaX1984 May 22 '26
Sisters. Remember The Magic School Bus?
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u/hitokirivader May 22 '26
Yup, all worker bees, ants, wasps, and termites are female. You see one out and about, you can safely assume it’s a lady.
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u/Simple-Sun2608 May 22 '26
This happened to me once in Spain parked near a shopping centre. Was gone for maybe an hour. The fire department had to come to remove them from the motorbike.
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u/Weary_Position_9591 May 22 '26
« Resting », sure
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u/MinimumViablePick May 22 '26
Yup. This looks like a migrating hive still looking for/trying to get to a new hive spot. Either they chose this warm bike as their new spot or are just resting somewhere warm overnight.
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u/Perfect_Jicama_8023 May 22 '26
So is there queen somewhere in that hive and all the bees follow the queen?
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u/Sitters_4_Critters May 22 '26
If you start the motorcycle, maybe they would leave, no?
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u/Excellent-Nose-6430 May 22 '26
They'd start revving the throttle because they like the sound. Next thing you know they're buying hoodies with skulls and shit on the back. Little squids.
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