About Honey Bees
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Bees in temperate climates (European subspecies) must be able to store large amounts of honey to survive the winter and maintain a colony size large enough to maintain the temperature of a winter cluster (interior minimum of 13º C ). To generate the metabolic heat to do this bees consume honey. Therefore, temperate adapted bee survival depends on a relatively large nest, inside a well-insulated cavity. Temperate adapted bees need to swarm early enough in the spring to have sufficient time for the swarm and the parent colony to store enough honey for the next winter. This is likely why temperate bees swarm as large colonies and at a lower rate.
In contrast, tropically adapted bees (African subspecies) do not experience prolonged periods of cold. They do not require a large, well-insulated nest cavity, a large colony size, or a large store of honey. In the tropics, swarming is dependent on cycles of resource abundance rather than seasons of cold and warm.
