How To Catch A Swarm

A little late on this post, this was actually about two weeks ago...

We received a call that there was a swarm (probably from the Bee Man's hive) that had ended up in a neighbors tree. A swarm is when the colony is either abandoning a hive, or the hive is splitting. A swarm is a group of worker bees and usually a queen, from the original hive. Once a swarm has landed, they all latch to each other and protect the queen. It literally looks like a ball of bees. The fun thing about swarms (at least for me it is...) is that they are usually not aggressive. There can be thousands of bees flying around you and they have zero interest in attacking anyone. This is because they aren't in a defensive mode, but rather they are in a survival mode. Most stings are from bees defending the colony!

So here is my theory... one second let me step onto my soapbox... You know those guys that always try and break world records by covering themselves with 100s of thousands of bees and walk away with minimal stings?? Well, I've lost some type of respect for them. Don't get me wrong though, anyone who covers themselves in bees is pretty audacious to begin with, but here is my theory that doesn't make them as brave as we think. I believe that they use swarm bees. The people who do this are covered in queens from separate swarms and all of the worker bees from the swarm jump onto the queen to protect her. So here a guy is simply covered in swarming bees that are not aggressive whatsoever. They are really just trying to "hang on" and protect the queen. Which doesn't make it nearly as exciting knowing that information. It's just my theory and could be completely untrue!

Anyway, back to the story; my Dad and I went out there to catch our first swarm, and here are the videos:

VIDEO I: Simply shows the swarm in the tree.




VIDEO II: The capturing of the swarm. *Yes we did find the lid.



VIDEO III: The ATTEMPT to release the bees into the hive body!



VIDEO IV: Recapturing the swarm. Closeup of the swarm and what it should look like after a successful capture!