I collected a large prime swarm from a Lilac tree in somebody’s front garden about a mile away from me. Just inn case you were wondering they were not my bees!
I shook the branch the swarm was on into a large cardboard box and managed to get most of the bees in. I then went back in the early evening to shut them up and bring them back to my isolation apiary.
As it was a very large swarm I decided to run them into the hive. I always find it an amazing sight to watch them marching into their their new home.
The process is straightforward – I put a sheet down on the ground and set a board sloping up from the ground to the hive entrance. Then I just tip the bees onto the sheet and watch the bees do their magic.
After about 5 minutes the first bees find the entrance and then over the course of the next hour the rest of the bees follow. It’s a fantastic sight to see.
The timelapse video below shows the process condensed down to less than 40 seconds.
I lifted the roof after the bees were in the hive to check on how well they were clustering and was shocked to find that they were covering 10 of the 11 frames. So I decided to add a second brood box straight away. I’m glad I did because when I inspected them for the first time after 3 days they had already drawn 9 frames of foundation and as it was a mated queen the first eggs had been laid! Wow – such a strong colony.
The Swarm in a Lilac Tree
