Bee Swarm Collection

Yesterday I (mike) collected my first bee swarm alone and I would love to share my experience with you all.

9 am received a swarm notification from bee watch app, contacted our local beekeeper Norman to see if they wanted it as it was a notification in my area and out of their collection radius, the answer was yes.

10 am got to the swarm location and passed another beekeeper who looking for it also due to it also being posted to a local facebook group as well. He was having an issue finding it and I knew exactly where it was thanks to the Bee.watch app, maybe he should have had the app as then he wouldn’t have wasted a journey.
I walked straight to the swarm location without issue and yes it was exactly where it was said to be on the app. I suited up after watching for a few seconds, I then warned a local who was close by tending to her horse 100yards away that there was a bee swarm after a short chat about there collection rather than there destruction, a business card was given out and the good lady decided to leave me to it.

10:10 am all tools prepped on the ground, it was said to be 9ft in the air on a branch and I had no ladder. I took secateurs a saw and a snake hook along with a swarm collection nuc box. I assessed the branch the swarm was on and decided both cutting/snipping tools where no good. The saw would have wound up the bees and the branch was too thick for the secateurs. This is where the snake hook came in. I held the box directly under the main swarm (where the queen would be) and used the hook to quickly and sharply shake the branch to dislodge the swarm from the branch. The main bulk of bees entered the box and I added a frame of honeycomb before quickly adding the lid, the good news was that they wanted to stay in the box, YES it must mean I have the queen, so a good start. The noise at this point was deafening, hundreds if not thousands of bees buzzing around me. It truly was a fantastic sight to see first hand. I left the nuc box on the floor with an entrance for the bees that didn’t land in the box to follow their fellow family inside. A certain amount of workers where them drawn to some small branches next to where the main swarm had originally settled so we snipped those branches and added those bees to the box. Eventually and around an hour of leaving the nuc box on the floor, there were a minimal (maybe 100) bees left flying around me still that would not enter the box, it’s hard to collect every single bee in a swarm when it’s a public place. I sealed the entrance with a bung, packed up my equipment and was on my way after explaining on the Facebook post that the swarm was collected and to expect a couple of bees around that area for a while until they realise the queen is no longer there.
Again I can’t describe the noise the swarm made but it was incredible.

11:30 am we turned up to the beekeepers with the swarm we collected thinking it was over, well that was far from the truth. Steven had learnt how a hive is assembled on Monday before and his assembled hive was ready to contain a swarm so I (along with my wife and two of my kids who also joined me on this adventure in the safety of the car) set off down the garden to the prep building, this is where Steve's hive was. Norman was the nearest beekeeper and explained that we were going to place this hive down with the others and then rehome these bees more permanently. Steve’s hive was loaded onto the trailer and we were off, Norman, myself, my wife and kids and by this time Steve had also turned up between other jobs.

12:00 pm we were down with the other hives, I was shown how to set up as we removed it from the trailer and added it to a stand, then I learnt about walking up. This is where a hive is set up, then a ramp and cloth are placed down leading up to the hive entrance, the collected swarm is them tipped onto this cloth and they walk themselves up to the hive, (the song “the ants go marching two by two” comes to mind but it’s a lot more active than two by two). They enter the hive and we leave them to settle in.

The time is now 1:00 pm so we left to get lunch.

here is the link to the video, Bee Swarm
Please let us know what you think it’s the first swarm I’ve collected alone (yes I had others with me but they stayed at a safe distance in the car)

Mike