Welcome back to the Bee Sanctuary! Today’s mission was a bit of an experiment. We’ve just expanded to a new apiary where we are testing out something I’ve never used before: concrete hives.

They come highly recommended for a few specific reasons: they are fire-resistant (great for bush-pull fires), they offer incredible temperature regulation, and they are essentially honey badger-proof. We’ve installed four of them, and today we’re moving in two very different colonies to see how they perform compared to our traditional wooden hives.

The “Swarm Cloud” Mystery

We were called out to relocate a swarm that had recently arrived. The homeowner saw the classic “cloud of bees” before they settled.

• Why do they move? While a hive might move if their home is demolished or a tree falls, the most common reason is a split. When a colony gets too big for its space, they raise a new queen. The old queen then takes a massive group of workers and leaves to find a new home, leaving the new queen to carry on the original legacy.
• The Relocation: This was a smaller swarm, so we had to be extra careful. We used red lights to get up close and personal without upsetting them. Since they don’t perceive the red spectrum, they stayed calm and clumped together—exactly what we want for a clean transfer.

The Concrete Hive Experiment

Back at the new apiary, we had a “strong” swarm for one concrete hive and a “fairly weak” swarm for the other. This gives us a perfect baseline to monitor their progress.

• The Queen Factor: In this relocation, the queen is everything. Because this was a fresh swarm with no established comb or eggs, the colony cannot “make” a new queen if we miss her. If she doesn’t make it into the hive, the workers will simply linger and eventually die off.
• A Beekeeper’s Trick: If a swarm is struggling, a pro move in a larger apiary is to “borrow” a frame of brood from a stronger colony. The bees don’t know the difference—the workers will hatch, the existing bees will feed them, and the swarm gets an instant population boost!

The Verdict: Monitoring Performance

We managed to get about 80% of the colony into the box on-site, and the rest followed once they realized the queen was secure. Now that they are settled into their heavy-duty concrete homes, we’ll be keeping a close eye on them to see if the temperature regulation really does help them grow faster than the colonies in our wooden boxes.

Have you ever seen a concrete hive in action, or do you stick to the classic wood? Let us know your thoughts on hive materials in the comments! If you’re curious to see how these colonies progress, make sure to Subscribe and hit the Notifications Bell so you don’t miss the follow-up.

Want to see the “donated” hives we mentioned? Check out our previous episode to see the massive colonies that started this new apiary journey!

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