Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Sometimes swarms hang in the most awkward places (see Figure 17), making it very
difficult to retrieve them and, on these occasions you either have to leave them or use your
imagination. I used a ladder to get to a swarm on one occasion. It was hanging off a branch
fairly high up in the tree over a small arroyo, or stream. I lifted the box to it and, with my
other hand, shook the branch hard. The swarm fell into the box, the ladder fell away and I
was left hanging on the branch with one hand, and holding a heavy box of bees in the other.
I shouted for my wife to come to help but she arrived centuries too late and I had already
hit the shallow water by the time of her arrival. I was lying there, covered with thousands
of increasingly irritated bees. Even swarms can go into fight mode if provoked enough and,
as usual, I hadn't put any gear on and so the pair of us fled.
A colleague of mine tried to extract a swarm from an electric fence, with comical results.
Most beekeepers have 'swarm' stories - a little like fishermen! Suffice to say that you
should be careful and treat them gently.
Swarm-collecting equipment
Keep a box handy for catching swarms. You can purchase basic cardboard boxes with
ventilation screens for this purpose. The one I use is shown in Figure 18. This doubles
as a swarm box for queen rearing and for holding the queen on a comb when I want her
out of the way.
Fig. 17.
A swarm clustering on a post - difficult to get off.
We smoked them up into a box of comb held above them
