How Do Honeybees Choose A Home?

As I was walking one day in my neighborhood, I noticed that a bee keeper's car was parked at the end of my street.  The bee keeper was on the roof (a tile roof), tearing it up, trying to find the home of the swarm of honeybees buzzing around the roof.  Why did the bees choose this particular roof to put down their roots?  I did a bit of investigating, and here's what I found.

Every year, honeybees must find a new home.  Honeybees use inhibitory signals when house hunting, paralleling the human brain's decision-making process.  It's another example of the sophistication of the honeybee population.  Every spring, about two-thirds of the honeybee colony split off from the group to form a new swarm.  After canvassing one potential home site, each scout returns to the group to report on the quality of the prospective home by doing a waggie dance on the swarm surface, literally dancing on a platform of bees.  Each scout visits only one site and instinctively know the difference between a so so spot and an excellent location.  The better the site, the longer and more vivaciously they dance.  The scout who recruits a certain threshold number of bees wins, and the swarm heads to that scout's location.

If two nests are equally desirable, the bees risk a deadly stalemate.  The swarm has only one queen, so they can't split up.  Scouts dance to win worker bees to their site, but might also head butt other bees emitting a high-pitched beep.  These inhibitory signals allow bees to break a deadlock and decide on a home faster.

So, next time you find that bees have made a home in your tree or outside your house, think of how hard the scout bee had to work to win the other bees over to his choice.  Your house or yard must be very special!