Catching a bee swarm...

[lftd&pwrstrok'n]

We are on the local swarm call list for Coweta County. While the vast majority of calls are not honey bees, tonight's was an actual honey bee swarm and a successful catch. I have been to more yellow jacket and bumble bee calls than I care to think about

As you can see from the video, a swarm of bees is very calm. While, I don't recommend working around stinging animals w/o protective gear, we are comfortable doing so. She was stung once on her hand and I was not stung at all. There is no reason to spray the bees, call a beekeeper and have them removed or leave them alone until they move on...

 

[lftd&pwrstrok'n]

To see the video:

 

[Deleted member 79987]

That's really amazing. How can you be sure you catch the queen too? Or is there no queen when they swarm?

 

[lftd&pwrstrok'n]

That's really amazing. How can you be sure you catch the queen too? Or is there no queen when they swarm?

There is a queen and if you don't successfully catch her, the catch is a failure. Typically you can be pretty sure you have her by the way the other bees react to the box. They will not stay in the box if the queen isn't in it. Before we left, all but just a handful of bees were down in the frames, so pretty sure we have the queen. We will check them next week to see if we have any eggs in the cells. If not, we will have to introduce a new queen.

The whole purpose of swarming is procreation. The queen leaves and takes about 1/2 the bees with her to start another hive somewhere else. The old hive will/or has raised a new queen to keep it's hive going when the swarm happens.