Bee Swarms, Beekeeping

Catching a large swarm in Glen Eden!!!

Posted on by Gary Fawcett
We got an email from Aaron this morning about a swarm in Glen Eden, that had landed in his front garden. When we got there we had to say “wow” it was the biggest swarm I have every seen. A colony that decides to swarm, will keep swarming until the hive is empty. The amount of bees in each wave gets smaller. This swarm looks like the first wave due to it’s large size. I shook them into a cardboard box and then emptied this onto our swarm sheet that I placed at the front of the hive. We have now run out of full-sized boxes, so we had to use a 3/4 sized box. Because the swarm was so huge, we had to go home and get another box :). Thanks Aaron for getting in touch and thanks for taking the photos. Also thanks for the coffee and chat as well. All in all a successful rescue with only three stings, the first bee stings this weekend. Welcome to Kiwimana HQ “Glen Eden 1” recovered 12 km away from base. Here are all the photos, Thanks to Aaron for taking them 🙂 I had my hands full…
Gary Fawcett

Gary is the web designer and chief Propeller-head at kiwimana. He enjoys designing products which solve problems and is passionate about saving the Bees and encouraging urban beekeeping. Gary loves to write about issues that affect the Bees and our environment. He is one of the hosts of the kiwimana buzz Beekeeping podcast.

3 thoughts on “Catching a large swarm in Glen Eden!!!”

  2. Graham says:

    Have you thought about freeing up some of your gear Gary? Selecting one of your smaller swarms for the best brood pattern, and uniting with another of your small swarms sans queen, will release gear for the bigger swarms yet to come. The new united hive will also be more productive that the two smaller ones. Just a thought mate!

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