Beekeeper Laurence Edwards explains that colonies don't get aggressive before swarming. The swarm itself is docile because the bees are full of honey and calm. After the swarm leaves, the remaining colony becomes defensive due to losing the queen, depleted stores, and fewer workers.
Steve's Bees, another channel member, says, regarding swarms or colonies about to swarm, can these colonies become more aggressive before they swarm? So I would say quite, quite the opposite. It is, it is the opposite. You know when a colony, when a colony swarms and you go and collect the swarm, like the swarm is so docile because they've gorged themselves on honey? They're just like, whatever. It's like after I've had my roast dinner and I'm sitting down on a Sunday night, I'm not, I'm kind of no trouble to anyone. And so bees are like that. So I find, and the colony I went into yesterday that is on the channel membership page, they were really chilled, really chilled out, and very, very good form. So I don't find that they become aggressive. I find that once they go, once the swarm's left, they can become a little bit aggressive because then they've not got a queen and they're kind of like, loads of the honey's gone and there's not that many bees there, and they're a bit like, oh, we're not— there's not as many of us as there was before. So I find once they swarm, they can become a little jinx.
