Hope this finds you and your bees enjoying the lovely spring weather! While a swarm can be distressing (I’m losing my bees!), it is also how they reproduce, so consider that you are helping the world’s bee population as well. Of course, being a good neighbor, you surely don’t want them taking up residence in a neighbor’s shed or other structure, so being able to catch your swarm (or someone else’s) is a good thing.

This week, two somewhat unobtainable swarms were caught using this very cool method…

Have box & frames for the swarm’s new home ready to go. Remove a frame of capped brood from a hive (does not need to be the one the swarm came from) and place it gently within the swarm… holding in place if necessary, or propping securely. Within a few minutes, the queen usually goes onto that frame! Gentle remove the frame, check for queen, and if she is there, place the frame inside the box (be sure to have other empty or drawn frames in the box as well so that it is full of frames) and put the box somewhere close to where the rest of the swarm is… the bees with the queen will begin fanning at the box entrance to let the rest know where she is so that they can join the box!

Here are a couple of shots of Dorothy’s swarm capture – great job! Within about an hour the bees were all inside the hive box and at dusk it was transferred to it’s permanent location.