Growth Strategy: Swarm Catching!
Swarm Catching Guide
Catching swarms can be a great way to increase the size of your apiary! There are some things to consider, though. Keep reading for a how-to guide on catching your first swarm as well as some cautions.
What is a swarm?
Bee colonies should be thought of as one super organism, not individual bees, and the way they reproduce is by raising another queen and then half or more of the bees leave with the old queen while the remaining bees stick around for the new virgin queen to mate and start laying. Swarming is how bee colonies reproduce naturally. Once the bees swarm, they usually cluster on an object and hang out there for a while until the scout bees find them a suitable location to use as their new hive. When a colony swarms, there are sometimes what we call after swarms. This happens when there are multiple virgin queens that emerge, some of those virgin queens may take off with a portion of the bees that remain after the main swarm with the original mated queen has left.
How can I catch a swarm?
Catching swarms is pretty easy as long as the swarm is down low and not high up in a tree, though we have a solution for that as well. We offer a swarm catcher with a metal hoop and cloth bag that you can attach to a pole of your choice and then raise it up around the cluster of bees and then jostle the branch to knock them in the bag. If the swarm is down low, those are generally easier to catch.
Before you catch a swarm, there is some basic equipment you will need to gather. Protective apparel is pretty important and should be at the top of the list. You'll also need some kind of a box, I like using a 5 frame nuc box. If using a 5 frame nuc box, put 5 frames and foundation in there, preferably drawn comb if you have it. I keep a deep freeze for frames and when I go to collect a swarm I'm grabbing drawn comb from there and it's great if they have some resources still in the frames. By giving them drawn comb they will be more likely to stick around and not abscond. You'll also need a queen clip, smoker, pruning shears and likely a ladder.
The strategy to catching a swarm depends greatly on where the swarm is clustered. If in a tree and on a healthy branch, you can hold the nuc box with 3-4 frames in it under the cluster and then gently brush them off and into the box. If in a tree and hanging from a twig, it may be easier to clip that twig off and carry the swarm down the ladder still on the twig and then shake them into your nuc box that's on the ground. Bees are most gentle when they have swarmed as they don't have resources to guard and protect, so they generally will be quite docile and smoking them isn't necessary. However, after I have gotten the cluster off the branch and into the hive, there's often some queen pheromones still on the branch and because bees can still smell it they will go back to the branch. When that happens I smoke the heck out of that branch to try to cover up the pheromone odor.
After you have gotten the bulk of the bees into the nuc box, you will need to verify you have the queen in the box. Sometimes the bees do the verification for you, other times you will need to pull out frames and search the inside of the box to physically spot her. Often that's not necessary as the bees will get on frame top bars and edges of the box and stick their butts up in the air and fan with their wings to spread the queen pheromone so their sisters pick up on the scent and make their way into the box as well. If you see a large quantity of bees on the edges of the box fanning and bees slowly making their way into the box, it's quite likely the queen is in the box. If you do not see that, start looking around for the queen and once found secure her in a queen clip and put her in the box so bees pickup on her pheromones and start fanning to get the rest of the bees in there. It is possible that there is not a queen for a few different reasons but the vast majority of swarms will have a queen, usually mated but could be a virgin if it is an after swarm. If there is not a queen, it will be tough getting all the bees in the box but a spray of Swarm Commander may help with that. If the queen is in the box, the rest of the bees will eventually make their way in there.
Once all the bees are in there you will need to block the entrance somehow and then transport them back to your apiary.
I caught a swarm, now what?
Once you get the swarm caught and back into your apiary, you need to get them started off on the right foot. Even if you gave the bees some drawn comb, they aren't going to have much in the way of resources. Immediately, once you get them back to your apirary start feeding them 1:1 syrup. Feeding them syrup will give them additional resources they will need to start putting away stores and draw more wax. Sometimes when you catch a swarm they may decide they don't like their new home and abscond, giving them a feeder with syrup can help combat that. Sometimes, if conditions allow, I will remove a frame of brood from an established hive and shake the bees off and then place that frame in the nuc with the swarm. Since I've added a feeder and a brood frame in there, they will be a bit more anchored there and less likely to abscond as they won't want to leave the brood. Often, if it's a small swarm I will leave them in the 5 frame nuc and let them expand and then move them to 10 frame equipment. Occasionally, you'll find swarms that are huge and too large to leave in a nuc so I will go ahead and put them in a 10 frame box but that would be a really healthy swarm to need that amount of space.
What else should I consider?
Sometimes when we see a cluster of bees we assume it's a swarm but it may actually be a colony that absconded. One of the reasons for absconding could be a very high varroa mite load, so by bringing that "swarm" into your apiary, you might be inviting a mite bomb in that will spread mites to the rest of your colonies. Usually I will get a swarm settled in and then do an oxalic acid vapor treatment on them and then a second one a few days later. As this swarm will not have their own brood, there are no cell cappings to penetrate so the OAV treatment is quite effective.
You could also think about genetics. Likely, if you're concerned about genetics, you've captured many swarms and this guide probably isn't much new to you. But, if you're trying to just keep a certain strain of bees or control genetics in the area where our apiary is, you may want to requeen the swarm.