How Does a Honeybee Swarm Choose a New Nest Site?

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A honeybee swarm does not pick its new home in one step. It waits in a cluster while a group of scouts searches for sites, reports what they find through dance, and recruits other bees to inspect those sites. The question of how does a honeybee swarm choose a new nest site is answered by this process of search, advertisement and quorum. This article explains each stage, the role of swarm size, and the limits of what the two sources can establish.

Quick answer

• Scouts search for a suitable new home while the swarm settles in a hanging cluster.
• Scouts advertise the locations and quality of sites by performing waggle dances, and newly recruited scouts visit and dance in turn.
• When enough scouts gather at one site, a quorum forms, and the swarm takes off to occupy that nest.

How we chose

Both sources are full-text articles hosted on PubMed Central. One is a study that combines an individual-based model with field experiments on swarm size and nest-site choice. The other is a mathematical model of information transfer among scouts during nest-site selection. Together they cover the decision process from the scout’s dance to the swarm’s final move. Both pages returned HTTP 200 when fetched directly, and both contained article text rather than a bot-check page.

Step one: the swarm waits while scouts search

The process begins after the colony divides. Nest-site selection is described in the swarm study as a complex but fairly well-understood process, whereby a swarm of honeybees selects a new nest site after reproductive swarming. The colony’s population divides, and approximately three-quarters of the workers, along with the colony’s current queen, leave their home and form a hanging cluster nearby. That cluster is what the study calls a swarm.

The second paper describes the same starting point. When a swarm of honeybees leaves the hive, it settles in a hanging cluster while scouts search for a suitable new home. The swarm does not move until the choice is made, so the cluster period is the decision window.

Step two: scouts communicate through dance

Scouts report what they find. The model paper states that scouts communicate information to the nestmates about locations and quality of sites by performing waggle dances. This is the same kind of communication that foragers use to describe forage patches. The sources describe the scout dance in detail, which makes it the central signal in the decision.

The dance also changes over time. A scout’s dance on each subsequent return contains fewer waggle runs than on previous returns, and she ceases dancing after several visits to the site. The model paper also reports that scouts cease to dance sooner for a poor site than for a good site.

Step three: recruitment spreads the advertisement

Recruitment is what makes the search collective. Newly recruited scouts visit the site, return to dance, and recruit others.

The model paper also notes that the presentation of information is not perfect. When a swarm has a choice between a good nest site and mediocre nest sites, it may still choose a mediocre one due to when various sites are discovered, the relative vigour of the scouts’ dances, inaccuracies in the presentation of information by dancers, and the way potential scouts interpret that information.

Step four: the quorum and the take-off

The decision rule is a quorum. When the number of scouts visiting a particular site reaches a quorum, the swarm takes off and occupies that nest. The model paper describes this rule and uses it in its simulations: when the numbers for one site reach a quorum, the site is chosen. The quorum is therefore the point at which the collective decision becomes a movement.

Timing is part of the picture. The model paper lists when various sites are discovered among the reasons a swarm may still choose a mediocre site.

Step five: swarm size and decision accuracy

Swarm size changes how accurate the decision is. The swarm study examined the effects of swarm size on decision accuracy under the assumption that the number of bees actively involved in the decision-making process, the scouts, is an increasing function of swarm size. Its fieldwork showed that large swarms invest a larger number of scouts into the decision-making process than smaller swarms.

The effect of size depends on the setting. The swarm study reports that the ability of a swarm to choose the best of two nest sites decreases as swarm size increases when there is some time-lag between discovering the sites. In contrast, when simulated swarms were faced with a realistic problem of choosing between many nest sites discoverable at all times, larger swarms were more accurate in their decisions than smaller swarms, owing to their ability to discover nest sites more rapidly.

The study also reports preliminary analysis of waggle dances from experimental swarms. It suggested that large swarms could indeed discover and advertise nest sites at a faster rate than small swarms. The two results point in different directions depending on the setting, so the effect of swarm size is not one-sided.

Step six: is randomness helpful?

The model paper asks whether chance helps or hinders the decision. It states that the model suggests that stochastic effects in honeybee nest-site selection confer no advantage on the swarm. In other words, the randomness in the process does not improve the swarm’s choice in the model. This finding is one of the key points of the model paper and it sits alongside the dance and quorum mechanisms described above.

The model paper’s decision rule is the quorum described above, so the swarm commits when scouts at one site reach that threshold rather than after a single scout reports.

Putting the steps together

Read in order, the process runs as follows. The colony divides and the swarm forms a hanging cluster. Scouts search and dance to report site quality. Newly recruited scouts visit and dance in turn. When scouts at one site reach a quorum, the swarm takes off. Swarm size affects how many scouts are involved and how quickly sites are discovered, which changes accuracy depending on whether the sites appear together or at different times. For more on how the dance itself encodes direction, see how a bee waggle dance points to nectar. For how honeybees manage temperature inside the hive, see how honeybees keep a winter cluster warm.

What we could not verify

The two sources do not give a single number for the time a swarm takes to decide, so this article does not state one. The model paper is a model, and the sources do not describe how closely its assumptions match every honeybee colony. The swarm study’s dance analysis is described as preliminary, which means its findings on advertisement rates should be read as a first look rather than a settled result.

What the sources do not say

The sources do not describe how a beekeeper should handle a swarm or how to attract one, and this article does not offer that advice. They also do not give a fixed number of scouts that a quorum requires for every colony,. The quoted text does not describe how swarm sites are chosen outside the cluster period.

Frequently asked questions

What happens to the swarm while it waits for a new home?

The second paper states that when a swarm of honeybees leaves the hive, it settles in a hanging cluster while scouts search for a suitable new home. The cluster is the waiting stage, and the swarm moves only after a choice is made.

How do scouts tell the other bees about a site?

Scouts communicate information to the nestmates about locations and quality of sites by performing waggle dances. The dance is the advertisement that recruits other bees to inspect the sites.

What is a quorum in nest-site selection?

A quorum is the threshold of scouts at one site. The swarm takes off and occupies that nest when the number of scouts visiting a particular site reaches a quorum.

Do larger swarms always choose better nest sites?

No. In the swarm study, accuracy in choosing the better of two sites fell as swarm size grew when the sites were found at different times. With many sites available at all times, the simulated larger swarms made more accurate choices.

Does chance help the swarm reach a better choice?

The model paper suggests that stochastic effects in honeybee nest-site selection confer no advantage on the swarm. The quoted text does not describe the swarm’s chances in a real colony outside the model.

Sources

• PMC3758014: The effect of swarm size on nest-site selection by Apis mellifera, PubMed Central, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3758014/ (HTTP 200, opened 2026-10-28)
• PMC2375933: Model of information transfer among scouts during honeybee nest-site selection, PubMed Central, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2375933/ (HTTP 200, opened 2026-10-28)