Honey bees swarm as a natural means of reproduction and expansion of the colony. When a colony becomes overcrowded, the queen bee will start to produce pheromones that signal to the worker bees that it's time to prepare for swarming. The worker bees will then create a new queen by selecting several young larvae and feeding them a special diet called "royal jelly." Once the new 'daughter' queen is ready, the old 'mother' queen and roughly half of the worker bees will leave the hive and cluster on a nearby object (e.g. fence, shrub, outdoor furniture, etc.) usually within 100 metres of the original hive. This process is called swarming. The second stage of swarming involves scout bees searching for a new suitable nesting site. This involves several hundred bees from the swarm working together to find a dozen or more candidate nesting cavities and then selecting the best one of these through a complex process of collective decision making. Once the majority have voted on the most suitable nesting site, the swarm will move to that location, start building wax comb and the Queen will begin laying eggs at a rapid rate to ensure the survival of the colony.​​ Swarming typically occurs in the spring or early summer when the weather is warm and there is an abundance of food available for the new colony.