swarm catching

[colbees]

i am wondering how to get started catching swarms. what equipment do you need? How do you get your name out there? How do you catch the bees?
thanks

[Sparky]

http://forum.beemaster.com/removal/swarmmap.php

Under your avatar you can click on the Bee Removal tab and enter your personal info or click on the link that i pasted above. You can contact your police department's and give them your contact info. to remove bees. You can get some business cards with your info to give to pest control local companies for removals.

[JP]

You don't really need much equipment to catch a swarm but will of course need woodenware to put them in. A swarm can be shook in a cardboard box, Rubbermaid container, bucket, etc... just be sure whatever you shake them in has ventilation.

Things that help: snips, hive tool, sheet ( if shaken over grass) lemongrass oil (not 100% necessary) queen catcher or queen cage (I prefer a queen catcher) spray bottle of water or one with a little sugar water if they are a dry swarm. Some people like using a bee brush if they are on a wall or something. I don't care for them personally but to each his own.

Bee repellant such as bee quick will keep them off of that limb you just shook them from & will help them orient faster. (Not 100% necessary though)

That's all I can think of at the moment.

get your name out there. call police & fire departments, pest control companies, animal control, spca, the zoo, etc...

Good luck & have fun!


...JP

[AllenF]

Talk to people and get your name out and you collect bees.   Calls can come in from anywhere.  And never overlook the value of swarm traps.   Another swarm showed up on my back porch in a nuc trap sometime last week.   

[BlueBee]

If you know of other beeks in the area, I would mention to them you're interested in any extra swarm calls they might get.  The first thing people seem to do when they find a swarm of bees is panic.  After the excitement subsides a little, they try to figure out who to call to get rid of them.  Many people don't want to kill honey bees, so they first look up "bee keepers" in the phone book.  Most people believe bees are valuable and hence bee keepers will naturally want to rush right over to collect them.

Reality is, successful bee keepers usually have more bees than they know what to do with already and it really isn't worth their time and gas money to run around chasing swarms.  I'm not listed in the phone book as a bee keeper, but enough people know I keep bees that I get a number of swarm calls.  I already have far too many bees and am only interested in the queen genetics of the survivors at this point so I would like to pass swarm calls onto somebody else.

As for catching swarms, many are very easy to capture, some are just too high to fool with.  I usually just brush or shake the bees into a 3 gallon plastic bucket and then dump them into a nearby hive.  If the bees are easy enough to get to and not big, I skip the bucket step and just brush the ball into a nuc box.  As JP says, a queen catcher is very useful for stubborn swarms or ones that don't all fall into the bucket in one big plop.  In those cases, it can be very handy to spot and then capture the queen in the remaining ball of bees in the tree or wherever the swarm might be.

[Kathyp]

bluebees suggestion of contacting other beekeepers in your area is a great one.  networking is very helpful not only to you, but to them.  if i get a call that i can't take, i always try to help the person find someone else.  i have a list by my phone of the 3 people i found in the area that do structure removals.  i also have a list of the places that list local beekeepers who do swarm catching.  if i know of a beekeeper who is needing more hives, i'll give out that persons number.

[tefer2]

I keep a list of new beekeeps that I know have equipment empty. I sometimes help them on the first ones.
This time of year I'm usually far to busy with my own hives to chase around much.
My list of swarm equipment contains a five gallon screened bucket, an extension painters pole, a queen catcher, and a roll of duct tape.