Just so you know, Gabriel is our in-house beekeeper. He’s only 16 and is already building quite the business for himself. It’s been really fun to watch his progress.
Every week, we get calls from people who need someone to remove bees from their property. Besides raising his own bees, Gabriel also handles live bee removals. Some jobs are pretty involved—like when bees settle inside a wall—while others are as simple as collecting a swarm.
Last week, he got a call about a swarm and scheduled a removal for that afternoon. Since Gabriel doesn’t have his license yet, I got to drive him. I’d never been on a bee removal before, so I was pretty excited. (I think I annoy him a little because I’m always snapping pictures and getting in the way when it comes to bees. But hey, that’s a mom’s right, right?)
SchneiderPeeps Catching a swarm of bees
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Swarms might look scary, but they’re actually pretty calm. At this stage, their only goals are to protect the queen by staying close together and find a new home. If you don’t bother them, you can usually walk right up to a swarm, and they’ll ignore you completely. Sorry about the photo quality—I was so excited that I forgot my camera and had to use my (not-so-great) phone camera. But I really wanted to share this with you guys.
Here’s Gabriel’s swarm-catching setup…
How to catch a bee swarm
Fancy, right? It’s just an empty paper box reinforced with duct tape. Gabriel cut a hole in the lid and covered it with mesh screening, securing it with—you guessed it—more duct tape.
Gabriel in his full beekeeping suit—which his loving mom (that’s me!) found for him (and one for Carl) for Christmas, by the way. I wasn’t wearing a suit since I was just there to take photos.
Oh, and here’s another high-tech tool: sugar water in a sprayer.
You spray the swarm with the sugar water, and you’ll see them huddle even tighter to shield the queen. Bees can’t fly well with wet wings, which is why you spray them. It also makes them a little sticky, so they stay busy cleaning themselves. Keeping bees occupied is helpful when you’re relocating them. (The sugar water mix is 1 pint of water to 1 pound of sugar.)
Take the box lid and gently scrape the swarm into it, then quickly dump them into the box and put the lid back on.
You won’t catch every single bee, but you’ll get most of them. As long as you get the queen, the remaining bees won’t be able to rebuild.
After that, Gabriel taped the lid shut. The bees spent the night in his room (yep, you never know what you’ll find in a teenage boy’s room), and the next morning, a friend came to pick them up. He already has several hives but wanted to introduce some local bees into his domesticated stock.
If you ever need bees removed from your property, please don’t call an exterminator. Instead, contact your local county extension office or check listings at Bee Rescue Swarm Removal.
