Huge bee hive near my front door!!! *pic* - Page 2

What is the difference between a swarm and a hive? Is the swarm like a town picking up and moving to a new location?

Sort of, it is how hives multiply. The worker bees create drone (male bees... yes they need them) and new queen cells. Before they hatch the old queen takes about half the workers and leaves the hive as a swarm to find a new home. In a few days the new queens hatch, fight, kill eachj other but one and then the queen mates with the strongest drone that can catch her and you have a fresh queen in the original hive.

Well, if it was a swarm, they just probably moved on.  Call your neighbor anyway.

Probably the queen is still in the middle of the swarm, so they aren't going anywhere without the queen.  I would still contact the neighbor, they may be trying to find the swarm but don't want to alarm anyone in the neighborhood...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chick1043 

I'll do that today! (: 

Question!!! Like I said, I know nothing about bees! How do they move from one nest (the neighbors) to another (my front door)? Like as a big swarm? Or one by one? How we noticed it yesterday was my brothers friend hearing a lot of buzzing outside. They looked out the window and saw like 5000 bees all in front of the door! So would they have moved that morning? I'm so interested in this! (:

As Chickened said, the bees inside the hive "decide" to hatch a new queen and drone.  If conditions are too crowded inside the hive, the old queen takes some (well, a lot) of the worker bees with her to find a new "home."  They will move together as a group.  If your neighbor did lose some bees, they will bring over a "super", or a big wooden box to collect the swarm.  They have to capture the queen so that all of the bees will follow the queen into the box.  

Here's a link to some more information...http://usefulbeekeepingarticles.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-capture-and-hive-bee-swarm.html

It depends where you are located as to whether you need a permit.  I took a beekeeping class (since my mom already had bees) and decided I didn't have enough time to properly care for bees - I help out my mom sometimes.  I decided to get mason bees instead so they could help with pollination of fruit trees.  Find a local beekeeper (or maybe even your neighbor) and see if they would mentor you.