Collecting a swarm!

We had been advertising our Free-Living Honey Bee Workshops locally to our rewilding site in Surrey, and someone who’d seen our ads gave us a call to see if we would collect a swarm of bees from an infants playground in Billingshurst. Whilst we have enjoyed bee swarms arriving at Maple Farm, this was the first time that we have been asked to collect one, so we put on our suits, and set off at 7.30am!

The swarm was located in a low level bush, and after quite a lot of pruning, we were able to pick up the branch with the bees. We carefully placed the branch on top of the bait box and then when most of them had moved down into the box, we placed the lid on and opened the small entrance holes at the bottom to allow the remaining bees to enter when they were ready.

We left them to it… and returned to collect them later that evening.

Around 7pm we returned to collect the swarm, doing our level best to ensure no bee was left behind! We brought them back to Maple Farm safely, and placed the majority of the bees (including the queen) into an empty top bar hive, and left the box in front of the entrance to allow the remaining bees to fly in. It was lovely to see the bees move in, and by dusk, they were all inside.