How do bees decide to set up a hive somewhere?

Question

For example, the bees in this video creating a gigantic hive in someone’s floor: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdsSawAV/?k=1

I know that bees follow the queen around but how does a hive even get into someone’s floor in the first place? And related- how do bees create a queen bee?

In: 5

Answer 1

I think they have scouts looking around when the bee population gets large, then they find a place- like a hollow log, or the hollow space in someone’s ceiling, or, in this case, someone’s floor. They will swarm and half will go to the new nest with a new queen, and half will stay with the old one. But that’s only the case for some bees, bumblebees have nests in the ground and most species of bees are solitary, so they’ll drill holes in wood, dig holes in the dirt, or live in hollow plant stems.