Got Swarms?

Do you have a swarm on your property?

First, determine if you indeed have a swarm.  Swarming is the natural method honey bees have of propagating their species and keeping a healthy colony.  When conditions such as overcrowding in the hive trigger a swarm response, the queen and thousands of worker bees will fly from the hive to a new location.  They typically stop for an hour, two hours, or even more than 24 hours while their scout bees seek out a new hive location.  Their temporary resting spot might be on a tree limb, a post, an outdoor grill, etc.  They will appear as a large ball.

If you report a swarm, or if you suspect you have a colony of honey bees living on your property, photos can help the beekeeper know where they are located and if they are indeed honey bees and not yellow jackets, carpenter bees, or other bee-like insects.

For more information about swarms, check this link.

For help with removing a swarm on your property, please contact one of the following:

Thomas Long

Iowa City/West Branch/West Liberty/Tipton

cell: 218-404-5738

tlong214@gmail.com

Scott Flynn (Washington/Riverside/Kalona/Iowa City)

Golden Hills Apiary

515-238-4028

goldenhillsapiary@gmail.com

Shaun Webb (Iowa City/Coralville/Kalona)

319-321-1414

shaunw@aol.com

Joseph Klingelhutz (Iowa City area)

319 530 7949
Jo.aloysius@gmail.com

Robert Blount (Iowa City/Coralville/North Liberty)

robert-blount@uiowa.edu

cell: 415-297-8005

home: 319-499-1295

Jim Davis (North Liberty, Iowa City vicinity)

cell: 319-331-9542

Drew Erickson (Cedar Rapids/Marion)

cell: 970-227-2548

drew.clif@gmail.com

If you are interested in being on the swarm removal list, please send your contact information to davisjk@southslope.net (Jim Davis) This list is a club perk and available to club members.

 Thanks.

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The following note about honey bee swarms was written by Dave Campbell, former secretary of ECIBA.  

GOT BEE SWARMS?

In summer, I often get calls from folks with swarms of bees on their property, asking if one of our beekeepers will come get them.  Here is what I tell them:

First, are you sure you really have honey bees?  True, this seems a pretty stupid question to ask, but there are folks who mistake bumblebees or yellowjackets, or even wasps and hornets, for real honeybees.  Wasps and hornets have narrow waists, whereas bumblebees and jellowjackets live in nests in the ground and are the wrong size (too large and too small, respectively).  Anyway, if you truly have a swarm (a clump of bees clustered on a post or tree limb), they are almost certainly real honey bees, the kind our beekeepers will want.

Next, do you need someone to simply catch a swarm (like the clump clustered on your bush), or remove a bee nest that is in place?  If there is a swarm to catch, your time is limited.  You likely have only a day or two.  That swarm is just marking time, continually sending out scouts to locate a good place to move into, such as a hollow tree.  Once they find one, the swarm will be gone, off to live in the new place they have found.  The beecatcher must get there and entice them into his/her bee box (hive) before that happens.  He/she will try to find the queen bee and move her into the hive: once the queen settles there, the rest of her cluster will come in with her.  The beekeeper can then take the box full of new-caught bees away.

How can you find a beekeeper?  Your county extension service or master gardeners group may be able to give you leads.  There are about a dozen beekeeper’s clubs scattered around Iowa; your nearest one may be able to help.  Find their contacts through the Iowa Honey Producer’s Association, www.ABuzzAboutBees.com.  Finally, most Iowa apiaries register their locations with the IDALS Sensitive Crop Directory.  Iowa Administrative Code Chapter 21-45.31(2) prohibits a pesticide applicator from spraying pesticides that are toxic to bees between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on any blooming crops located within one mile of a registered apiary.  The website at BeeCheck.org

has maps that make it easy for the applicator to locate nearby registered apiaries.  But you can use it to find a local beekeeper who might want your swarm.

Whether the beekeeper will be interested in putting in the effort to catch your swarm will depend on the time of year.  An old jingle says this:

                A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay.

                A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon.

                A swarm of bees in July in not worth a fly!

The reason we keep bees is so they will make surplus honey the beekeeper can sell or use.  The May and June swarms will have plenty of time to produce surpluses, so are valuable to the beekeeper.  The July swarm will likely not make a surplus this year, but may well store enough honey to bring the colony through the winter, so (assuming it survives the cold) will be of value next year.  A swarm caught in August or later will probably have to be fed (sugar water, say) to bring its stores up to get it through the winter, so it represents an iffy proposition—the beekeeper will have to go to the effort to both catch and feed it, with no sure guarantee of success.  Result: as the season goes on, any beekeeper you contact will be progressively less enthusiastic about catching the swarm that clustered on your bush. 

What if you don’t have a temporary cluster of new bees, but an established nest of them living somewhere you don’t want?  Your problem has now changed; you don’t want a “swarm catcher”, you want a “bee removal”.  Are you kind-hearted, and want to “save” the bees?  Bee removal/recovery often involves carpentry work; cutting down a bee tree, say, or removing siding or soffits of a building to get at the bees.  This is going to cost you money—you need a beekeeper/carpenter, preferably someone bonded to do the work, who will both remove the bees and repair your structure after the bees are gone.  Are you not particularly kind-hearted, but just want to get rid of the bees?  Depending on the situation, there may be other options, such as hiring a regular insect exterminator to just kill the bees in place.  My general advice to folks who want bees removed is to leave them alone unless they are causing serious problems.  It is quite possible that the nest will winter-kill, especially if it took up residence during August or later.  If the bees are not evident come spring, your problem will have solved itself, and with no effort or expense on your part!  (However, be sure to plug the access hole(s) to keep yet another swarm from taking up residence in the old nest.)