Swarm Catching 101

[Lesgold]

Hi Folks,

After a week of rain, the inevitable happened. One of my hives swarmed within an hour of the rain stopping. We only had about 20 minutes of sunshine and out they popped. The swarm was about 8 feet off the ground on a thin bush so I cut the small branch ad lowered it down towards an empty hive. Most of the bees landed on the hive or the ground surrounding the box. Obviously, quite a few landed on me. I stood and watched the bees to see if they would walk in and adopt the new home. Many of them started to land on my head and I assumed that the queen had been flicked onto my shoulder. Left the bees in location for about 10 minutes to see if they would leave. They didn?t so I decided to walk up to the house so that my wife could take a shot. The girls were well behaved during the whole process. Walked back to the box and shook myself. The girls then started marching into the new hive. I haven?t seen this technique in the textbooks but I?m sure it?s happened to many of you.



Cheers

Les

[BeeMaster2]

That is pretty neat. No, I have never seen that happen. I have been covered in bees but they were just spread thin all over my back and head.
At Bud 7, Schawee found a queen in a swarm, put it in a queen catcher and held it in his hand and the bees totally covered his hand with a football size swarm, he had to rest his hand on the back of a truck because it took over half an hour to fully form.
Jim Altmiller

[The15thMember]

That is an awesome picture!  I'm catching every swarm like that from now on! 

[Michael Bush]

Dr. Chip Taylor from KSU in Manhattan KS tells the story of how he was studying AHB and their swarming behavior  in Brazil with some grad students.  He became acquainted with a local beekeeper who said all you had to do was rub the inside of a box this plant and the swarm would move in.  He gave Chip some lemongrass.  Chip put it in his pocket and forgot all about it.  Later that day when his grad students announced that the scout bees on the swarm they were watching had reached a consensus and they told Chip which direction they were going, he stood half way between the swarm and the destination thinking it would be fun to be in the middle of it as it passed by.  The swarm took off and went past him 20 yards or so and then did a 180 and started landing on his shirt.  Soon the entire swarm was on his shirt.  He was puzzled.  Then he remembered the lemongrass in his pocket.