Swarm Collecting

May through to July is the honey swarming season. When a colony is large enough it will reproduce by raising a new queen, with the old queen leaving along with half of the bees, off to find a new home.

The first was in a Cherry Tree in Brimpton. This was a simple collection, we placed our Swarm box underneath a quick shake of the branch and they were in the box. The swarm is now in a local beekeepers hive.

The second was small swarm in Chieveley. We were able to brush them into our swarm box. These bees are now in the garden and we will see how they do.

The third was a massive swarm in Thatcham. This swarm was deep within a hedge, but we were able to place a box on top of the hedge and encouraged them to move upwards with a bit of smoke. After an hour or so all most of the bees had moved up into the box and we were able to take them away and put them into a hive.