Honey bee swarms

It won't be long now before we get bee madness again so I thought I would write a little bit about bee swarms and why you shouldn't panic if you get a bee swarm.

First of all, if you do end up with a swarm of bees don't try and kill them, simply go to our Honey bee swarm collectors list and find out who your local bee swarm collector is and give them a call.
Most swarm collectors are pretty quick to get there and it doesn't take too long to pick them up and move them on.

Ok, let's have some facts about bee swarms. When bees swarm they are not trying to attack you. The reason for them swarming is because their original home became too small for the colony so they split the swarm is the half that left the original nest/hive.
When bees swarm they have no home to defend and have fed on honey before their search for a new home and are actually quite happy about the whole affair.
Having said that I wouldn't suggest that you ignore the process and carry on as if they were not there.
Swarms vary in size from a couple of thousand bees (a cast swarm) to 20,000 strong (a primary swarm). If you are lucky they will land somewhere easy to reach and stay put until the beekeeper can get to them.

The process of swarm collection is very straightforward and simply involves shaking the swarm into a box and placing it on a sheet on the ground, the bees will do the rest. If done late in the day the bees that are still flying will very quickly enter the box where the rest of the bees are and they can then be taken away.

Some swarm collectors don't charge a fee, but it is considered polite to compensate their fuel costs.
Other swarm collectors charge a small fee for removal.

If you are unlucky and a swarm manages to "get in" somewhere before the swarm collector can catch them, then there are two options, either extraction which as the word suggests can be painful. Or the final solution which we try to avoid if at all possible. Blog menu