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    Home » Video » Bee TV

    Bee Swarm Capture Video - GF Video

    by Eric · This post may contain affiliate links, its one way we pay the bills. · 8 Comments

    Honey bee swarm capture, or bees swarm rescue, or hiving a swarm caught on video. Capturing a honeybee swarm is a neat experience. Bees swarm in the spring, and then they move to a tree limb to start looking for a new home. This is when we can capture the swarm.

    This honeybee swarm was in Carroll Gardens Brooklyn, where there are a lot of urban beekeepers. In the spring the honeybees swarm, half of the bees leave the hive with the queen to form a new colony in a hollow tree, ideally. The swarm bees will cluster on a tree limb while their scouts fly out and look for a new home.

    Beekeepers can take advantage of this cluster to create a new beehive. The bees are very docile while they are swarming, they have no hive to defend, so they are not out to sting you.
    Luckily, these bees here on a low hanging limb that i was able to get to with a ladder. You take a bucket, place it below the swarm, and thump the branch on the bucket so the bees drop into the bucket.

    bee-swarm-capture-gf-video

    Next time i should have a helmet cam on, it was a very cool thing to watch. This video shows the view from down on the ground. It was neat, to say the least. What is key here is I had an empty hive on standby for a swarm call like this.

    You can also drop the bees into a cardboard box that has large vent holes covered with screening. The bees NEED lots of air or they will overheat.

    We leave the swarm box on the ground for several hours to let all the bees fly into the box, ideally you will move the box in the evening, when its cooler and the bees are calmer.

    Check out some nice photos of a swarm capture by Phillipe here.

    In Brooklyn, honeybee swarms have become a regular occurrence, and people will walk right by without even looking sometimes. Check out all of our how to raise honeybee videos here

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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Gordon Medley

      May 09, 2012 at 9:16 pm

      @GardenForkTV Why did they swarm and how did you know you could use these bees? Where would they most likely come from in such a busy city?

    2. Tonia Moxley

      May 10, 2012 at 1:01 pm

      Nice capture! I wish I had more hive equipment to catch more swarms this year. I caught two in April. But with that and two packages, I'm out of hives!

    3. Scott

      May 10, 2012 at 3:38 pm

      Dude that is awesome!
      Are you going to put them on your roof in Brooklyn or take them to the farm?

    4. Eric Gunnar Rochow

      May 10, 2012 at 4:08 pm

      @scott, i brought them up to the beeyard in CT, though i am planning on having a few hives in NYC this summer. stay tuned.

    5. Scott

      May 11, 2012 at 7:50 am

      @ Eric I am really looking forward to seeing some videos and blogs about the "NYC Hives" all the hives keep in town seem to do so much better than the ones in the country...however the honey seems to be a lot lighter. I can't wait to see how your bees go in the city!

    Trackbacks

    1. Bees Swarm in Front of Eco Brooklyn | Eco Brooklyn says:
      June 5, 2012 at 1:55 pm

      [...] a swarm of bees in front of the Eco Brooklyn office the other day so I called my friend Eric from GardenFork.tv to come by and give them a home. Check out the video he made of [...]

    2. Maple Syrup Boil and Apple Tree Grafting : GF Radio - GardenFork.TV Cooking & DIY Videos : GardenFork.TV Cooking & DIY Videos says:
      April 11, 2013 at 1:10 pm

      [...] We asked people on Twitter and Facebook what they wanted us to talk about and Matt wants to hear about splitting a hive, so we talk about why one splits a hive, and how to capture a swarm, here is the link to Eric showing how to capture a honeybee swarm. [...]

    3. Bees Swarm in Front of Eco Brooklyn - Eco Brooklyn says:
      February 18, 2022 at 1:55 am

      […] a swarm of bees in front of the Eco Brooklyn office the other day so I called my friend Eric from GardenFork.tv to come by and give them a home. Check out the video he made of […]

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