{"id":473377,"date":"2026-05-29T16:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T16:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/473377\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T16:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T16:43:07","slug":"public-urged-to-check-roofs-during-bee-swarming-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/473377\/","title":{"rendered":"Public urged to check roofs during bee swarming season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The public is being advised to check roofs and sheds during bee swarming season.<\/p>\n<p>Swarming season is generally from the end of spring until late summer.<\/p>\n<p>University of Galway Zoology Professor and beekeeper Grace McCormack said swarming happens when a queen bee leaves a nest to allow a developing queen to take over, allowing the nest to reproduce.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on RT\u00c9&#8217;s News at One, Prof McCormack said: &#8220;So the (original) queen will take around half of the bees that are in a colony and they will go off to find a new nest. And they leave behind a developing queen to continue the original nest.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She said that due to the current hot weather, bees &#8220;are ready&#8221; to swarm.<\/p>\n<p alt=\"It's swarming season people are being advised too check their roofs an...\" class=\"tpe\" data-description=\"To tell us more about these swarms, Grace McCormack, Zoology Professor at the University of Galway. \" data-embed=\"rte-player\" data-id=\"22617328\" data-ot-category=\"C0004\" data-title=\"To tell us more about these swarms, Grace McCormack, Zoology Professor at the University of Galway. \" id=\"22617328\">We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.<a class=\"blocked-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/2026\/0529\/1575942-swarming-bees\/javascript:void(0);\" onclick=\"OneTrust.ToggleInfoDisplay()\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Prof McCormack said that the public should &#8220;keep an eye&#8221; on their property as bees might use the walls or roof spaces to form a nest.<\/p>\n<p>She said that if a person sees about five to 20 bees near their roof, they should contact a beekeeper or a beekeeping club.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s because the scouts are deciding if that is a good place to go. You still have time before the swarm arrives, and that is really the best time to act,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Prof McCormack said a swarm could be made up of thousands of bees.<\/p>\n<p>She said that a person can deter bees from nesting in a chimney by lighting a fire, and also said that spraying deodorant or hairspray deters bees from nesting in an area.<\/p>\n<p>Prof McCormack added that once a queen gets into a space, bees become &#8220;persistent&#8221; and it is difficult to remove them, especially in roofs or wall cavities.<\/p>\n<p>She added that bees in Ireland are &#8220;docile&#8221; and not aggressive.<\/p>\n<p>Prof McCormack added the public should &#8220;not be afraid&#8221; of swarms and that &#8220;it is wonderful to watch them&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The public is being advised to check roofs and sheds during bee swarming season. Swarming season is generally&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-473377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}