I know this for two reasons. Firstly an article about a swarm appeared in the press. Congratulations The Evening Standard.
Secondly, as I was on the way to give a talk about bees I drove through a swarm and had bees bouncing off the windscreen.
In the talk I give I discuss swarms and make the point that the coverage given to them is invariably misleading, inaccurate or just crap - take your pick.
Recently I was persuaded to get the web site back up to date [thanks Angela!] so I have put something on it about the swarming process here.
Swarming season is a busy/anxious time for bee keepers and much time is spent trying to manage the process. I'm afraid two of my colonies have already swarmed, one happened right in front of me as I was going to inspect the hive. There are numerous methods that can be used but I have to admit I'm not brilliant at it. Someone I spoke to recently said 'I don't know why we just don't let them get on with it'.
This year swarms have become more relevant to me as I have met the area Pest Control Officer and discovered we have a mutual interest in motorbikes and bugs. He wants to keep bees so I help him with this and he teaches me about wasps , solitary bees etc.
As we are in swarm season he spends a lot of time collecting swarms but I was surprised how few of these swarms are taken up by local bee keepers so I intend using some of the field I have at Scald End to house these unwanted swarms.
The first swarm we went to was in a garden in Little Staughton. There were two small swarms in the same bush and in a convenient place and height to be collected.
We had a chat with the house owner and then just as Courtney decided to get his kit ready to collect the swarms, the smaller swarm [perhaps just visible to the left of the bigger swarm] decided they had something important to do and left. In about 20 seconds they had all gone.
The remaining swarm was conveniently hanging on a small branch that was cut off with secateurs and dropped in the swarm box under which is laid a sheet.
As you can see from the photo the local authority provide highly specialised swarm capture boxes designed specifically for the purpose and the result of years of highly scientific trial and analysis.
I accept that to the untrained eye it might look like just an empty Stella Artois box with holes hacked out with a Stanley knife but don't be fooled.
There were still bees flying so the box is propped up with what the Council would probably call Miscellaneous Pest Holding Receptacle Inclinometer Adjustment Devices or what the the non-expert would call twigs. These allow the bees to get into the box.
Sometimes the problem with collecting swarms is you might not get the queen which would have meant the bees would desert the box and go back to where the queen was but we seemed to be OK as returning bees happily went into the box.
The box was left for the bees to return to and I went back to collect it about 9:30 that evening and took it back to the apiary at Ravensden.
The following day I transferred them to a Nuc box [basically a small bee hive] and put a feeder on the hive to get them started.
Apologies for the poor quality of the videos in full screen mode, I'm trying to sort this out.
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