How To Catch & Re-home A Swarm Of Bees With Cotswold Bees

hello so we've been called out to a swarm and it's a really nice easy one it's hanging in the bush here and we've got to collect this and take it away if we leave it to do its own thing chances are it'll either go somewhere really inconvenient or with the weather if it starts to rain that will cause it real problems so what we're going to do they're really at their most docile when they're like this but I'm still not going to need to put a bee suit on and we'll pop over to the truck we'll get the kit ready pop the bee suit on and we'll show you how we collect a swarm so we need a few bits of kit to be able to collect the swarm nothing terribly exciting and one of the main things I need is a cardboard box and this is an ideal size cardboard box so we need that to collect them and then we need just very simply a pair of secateurs always always carry a pair of secateurs when you're you're beekeeping so we've got those and I need a queen excluder so I've got a spare Queen excluder there and then that's about it so what we can now do is we can now pop bee suits on go over there and collect the bees if I get the Queen into the box everything else will follow I'm not going to mess about trying to find her all I've got to do is not get a whole swarm into the box if I can I might cut off the branch but it's quite a nice little thorn bush so I'm just going to try and shake them into the box and then hopefully the Queen will be in there and I'll show you in a minute how we can find out if she is and then also be well so I'm just gonna put my hood up now and shake the bees in so here we go box underneath get hold of the bush really good shake all the bees in I'm gonna pop my queen excluder over the top like that and then what I'm going to do is turn my box upside down like this there we go and then I'm just going to prop it open with a stick and the reason for the Queen excluder is if I've got the Queen in here that's now going to stop them abscond except the Queen can't go they can't go so we're going to do there's wait a minute I've got one or two be still in the in the bush so I don't think the Queen's there but I'm just going to give them a shake get them out maybe a bit confused just the bush will spill smell of the Queen but we'll give them a a bit of a shake like that and then I'm just going to get make sure that the boxes on top of the Queen excluder properly there we go prop it up I'll probably get a stone or something in a minute so I've got my stone here which gives me a better entrance pop that under there like that that's perfect so now I can just wait and if I wait a few minutes I'll see those bees going in and out you can see here here's the biggest fanning to show that we've got the Queen inside [Music] now it's really important even though I've got the mill er all the B's in here but I don't take this away at this stage because there's going to be some flying bees out there they're going to be collecting nectar and pollen ready for starting a new colony and if I took these bees away now they're going to come back they're going to be annoyed so I've got to leave this here until this evening and this evening I'll come back and pick it up once the bees have stopped flying so we're back here now and it's off my state in the evenings that's eight and a half hours since we actually put the swarm into the box you can still see there's one or two flying so we're still going to wait a bit before we can actually move them but when we do move them we're going to take advantage of the fact that bees always walk uphill so what should have happened if all is going to call into plan is the swarm that we puts in here should now be at the top of this box and shouldn't even be starting to make some kind possibly at the top of the box and when we've ready to move them we're going to turn the box upside down seal the top and then we can move the whole box in one go and then what we're going to do is put them into the new hive and again we're going to use the fact that bees always walk uphill to enable us to actually put them into their new hive and you'll see how we do that when we get there so I'm just going to wait a bit for these bees to start flying and then we can turn the box upside down and we can start all over again with the bees and move them to their new home okay so we were waiting for simply ages and we've just got one or two so I'm just going to give them a little bit smoke to move them inside and then I'm going to turn the box upside down and very quickly cover it with a towel so here we go box goes upside down cover it with a towel and there we go I can now simply pick my box up and take it away with a new home all nice and steep up inside here and we know that we get through out the box and into the box so we could just tip them all into the hive but actually that's quite a problem and also we can't inspect them as we do that so what I'm going to do is I'm actually gonna turn the cardboard box out into this ramp that are getting for instant hive and then again use this idea that these will always walk uphill and if all goes according to plan they'll actually walk into the hive so let's have a go I'm just gonna knock them down to the bottom just in moving them they've all walked walk back up so there we go and now I'm just going to turn the Box upside down onto the ramp and if we got it right they're gonna walk in they go and you can see these are walking uphill you can see there natalie is walking to the hive in a go and I can watch them walking in as they go doing this entirely naturally this is exactly what they would do normally I haven't put anything in the highs there's no attractant in there or anything like that there's just some empty frames and you can see they're going yeah now I can keep my eye open for the Queen it's unlikely I'm going to see her in there but I can't keep my own if she was marked then I'd be able to see her and because I can't see her this encourages me I know it's not one of mine because all my Queens and marks but they're also clipped so it shouldn't be yeah one of my queens but you never quite know and there you can see this goal they're all walking in and this will take a little while now not only a good time to have a cup of tea and maybe a bit of cake if you've got one going but tonight I haven't so gonna have to do without cake tonight and he said you just watch this absolutely Racal of the bees walking into the hive is that these are almost running in there's not a huge slaw it's not a medium-sized swarm but still very gratifying to think that we've been able to rescue this and get them all into a nice high and looking to following Wendy's more prosper now once I've got all the bees inside I'm actually going to put it of Queen excluder underneath the hive again just to stop the Queen absconded over the next couple of days I'll come back in three days time remove the Queen excluder all the beads will have been out to fly in and out but not the Queen but I'll remove the Queen at SLU at that points and that's what I'm going to feed them no nothing to feed them before then because these bees will gorge themselves on honey before this hearing and I want them to use up all of that honey because if there's anything nasty in the hive they've come from Oracle being that honey and if it eaten all the honey then it's absolutely fine then it's all gone I just don't want them storing it so I won't feed them until two to three days after they've gone into the hive so we can just stand back a bit and watch them pouring into the hive [Music] sexy peas here now running on the outside really good indication that Queens in there they're finding that Queen pheromone out encouraging all that sisters to go back in and inner swarm they really are nearly all the females there's the odd drone in here but very very few they really are a bit of a waste of space in a swarm it's a mouth to feed that the bees could do without but really good indication that the Queen's in there I didn't see her go in but the bees know she's in there finding a way like crazy some more here you can see on the outside really indicating and there's a pan back now you can see not too many left to go in and all still lining up and going in nice orderly queue [Music] well they did a couple of minutes ago is to take the entrance block out you can see it here gives them more room to get in and they've gone in a bit quicker they're still pouring in just looking at these again these bees awesomes in the air Fanning like crazy Queen pheromone filling the air and showing them the right way in so once they've all gone in which won't be very long now I'll put that entrance block back in and I'll show you where we're going to put the Queen excluder as well and then we're done for the night so as you can see now pretty much all the bees have gone in definitely got the Queen in there we know so what we want to do now is put that entrance block back in and also put the Queen Nets to the back so I'm just going to move the whole back a little bit to put the entrance block in fit that in there like that and then I've just got to get the Queen excluder in now this is so much easier if there's two of you I'm going to take the roof off because that's one of the heavier bits but what I just need to do is slide that Queen excluder in underneath there pop it on like that now the worker bees can still fly in and there no problem at all but the Queen can't get out and that means once she starts laying in there they won't want to abscond but that keeps her in there until they've built some comb on those frames and she can start laying and once that's happened there they'll stay there absolutely no problem so I'm just going to leave the ramp there tonight so the last bees can walk in or fly in whichever they decide they prefer and that's it there we go we've got our bees we've caught our swarm we've moved a swarm we've hired a swarm and hopefully if all goes according to plan this will be a nice colony of bees that will build up and hopefully produce some honey maybe not this year it's what is it now it's the middle of June so they might just produce a little bit they might produce enough for their own store for the winter but if we're really really lucky they might produce some surplus but actually they might be abuse for us for next year so there you go how to capture a swarm and how to put a swarm in the new hive I hope you've enjoyed that if you did please give us a thumbs up and hopefully subscribe to the channel the thumbs up really helps us with YouTube's statistics and we really are grateful for it and we'll be back with a new video soon

Channel: Cotswold Bees

Views: 445,562

Rating: 4.8143492 out of 5

Keywords: Cotswold Bees, honey, bees, swarm, collect swarm, learn beekeeping, beekeeping, new beekeeper, how to collect a swarm

Id: t-QJigKPJx4

Length: 13min 26sec (806 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2020