Beekeepers around the country have had a busy summer attending call outs to swarms.
Swarming is a natural process whereby bee colonies split in half and go in search of new homes.
Tom O'Sullivan, a Dublin-based beekeeper, is one of 980 beekeepers that volunteer with swarms.ie, a website where members of the public can report swarms.
Tom said that swarms can be found anywhere, be it on a tree or in a bush. However, swarms have also ended up in more difficult areas, such as in the chimney of a house.
"Their endgame is they're on the move looking for a new place to live," he said.
"So sometimes when they are on a side of a building, their intention is to move into the building.
"A large proportion of swarms not intercepted in time will end up in a person’s roof, a person’s chimney. The reason for that is there’s a shortage now of natural nests and sites.
"They still go into cavity block walls, they will go into a cavity in a tree, which is their preferred choice … that’s the ideal location for them.
"But at the moment a lot of these urban swarms flying around are heading into people’s homes and just causing a nuisance."
Swarming season is generally from the end of spring until late summer.
There are several theories why there were so many swarms this summer, including the recent unseasonably hot weather.
Provisional data from Met Éireann suggests that last month was the warmest June on record for Ireland, breaking the previous warmest June of 1940.
The forecaster said that the average temperature in June was over 16C, breaking the previous record by over half of a degree.
'Ridiculously high'
Tom said that the number of call outs through swarms.ie was "ridiculously high", with reports of swarms coming from across the country.
"Me personally, I would be one of the few beekeepers who would travel nationally to deal with bees," he said.
"I could be in two or three counties in one day. Generally, I head to the furthest county and make my way back to the city. Everything comes back here first and it’s all settled and then sent off to where needs be."
Tom has bee hives in his garden in Dublin, as well as hives in counties Cavan and Meath, a lot of which he got from swarm collection over the years.
"The total amount of bees I’d have over the three sites would definitely be pushing the 4.5 million mark at peak times.
"Peak time being high summer, of course that will drop back to maybe 1.8m or 1.7m for the winter, for the quieter months," he added.
Tom said that swarms.ie received well over a thousand reports of swarms this summer, adding that the vast majority of them have been collected.
"Sadly, some of them were not intercepted in time but they will be, they will be. We’re coming," he said.
