Catching swarms

At some point or other beekeepers, despite their best efforts to check weekly during the beekeeping season for signs of bees swarming, are caught out by one of their hives swarming.

Knowing how to collect and hive a swarm is a useful skill. It not only enables you to ‘save’ your bees and give them a new home in your apiary but it also prevents swarms from your apiary becoming a nuisance to neighbours and your local community.

As beekeepers gain experience and confidence in collecting swarms they often step up to become registered on the BBKA national swarm collectors map via their club membership secretary. This is a service to the general public, so it is important that the beekeeper is fully aware of their BBKA insurance details (which can be found on the BBKA website) and are competent enough to do it so that others are not put at risk as well. The rewards are obvious!

Below you will find a 3 part series of Videos about collecting swarms presented by one of our branch members and master beekeeper, Dr Lea Bayly . The first two are primarily aimed at those wanting to learn about how to do it and third is useful to swarm collectors at all levels with useful advice for before and after collecting a swarm. The demonstrations are mock ups to give you an idea of what to do but nothing, of course, beats doing it ‘for real’. Nevertheless we hope it will be of help.

The buttons below allow you to access and print information that will be useful when you go to collect a swarm