Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Collecting unknown swarms
If you are asked to come to collect a swarm from someone else's land or house, grasp the
opportunity for a free new colony to increase your stocks. You will need a spare hive and
wax frames, though, or at least a nucleus box until you can obtain another hive.
Many beekeepers will tell you to avoid unknown swarms because they may have a
disease or be a nasty strain, or a thousand other reasons. I say, go to get them. After
all, if you were a cow farmer and someone offered you a free herd of cows, would you
refuse? Diseases can be treated and nasty strains can be re-queened.
Swarms are programmed to make wax combs and, if you collected them just for this,
it would be worth it. In this case, however, try to find out how long the bees have been
hanging there. If a swarm has been hanging up for too long and the scouts haven't sorted
out a new home or bad weather has prohibited takeoff - or for any other reason - the
bees may become irritable, and irritable swarms can explode like atom bombs if you
start messing about with them. Perhaps they have been there for so long that they have
built comb and have become a colony at this particular site. They will then be normally
protective of their nest.
Making a show of swarm collecting
Mostly, however, a swarm will be very gentle and easy to handle. It's great to collect
them. You perform a service for others; you obtain free bees; and, if you make sure loads
of people are watching (get on your mobile to tell people about it and delay your own
arrival for a while - I know a beekeeper who did this), you can look like a hero.
Make sure your audience stays well back because of the 'danger', and advance bravely on
the swarm as if going into a war zone. The public don't know that a swarm is the easiest
part of beekeeping because they will have seen the film,
Swarm
and, even if they haven't,
everyone (except you) knows from birth that bee swarms are deadly! And there you will
be, bravely treating them like flies. Don't mess this up, however, because, if you irritate
a swarm enough, a few of its members may just start stinging people, and then your
reputation will go straight down the drain. Also, by collecting swarms you may save the
bees from being classed as pests and destroyed. What a waste of livestock!
