lids,” Mike said. He stroked his dark beard nonchalantly while looking around the class, a diverse group of young, old and middle-aged participants. He savored our surprised expressions. “I use paper boxes, the kind reams of paper come in. You can also use an empty hive super, which is the box-like section of a commercial hive. Of course, any openings have to be duct taped. Then, if the swarm’s in a bush near the ground, where it’s easily accessible, you can just put the box directly underneath it, give the branch they’re hanging on a good jerk, and they fall in.” He grinned. “It’s like one bee’s holding onto the branch and then someone’s holding on to him and so on, in a big chain, so when you shake it and the one lets go, they all let go.” Our group chuckles.
“Within a few minutes the remaining bees will form a smaller cluster, so you just have a second box on hand to get those. You can even have a third box, but the bees that are left will return to the hive.” He told how he typically wears only a veil for protection (no gloves or suit) while capturing a swarm. “The bees are sluggish from all that honey,” he said, “they’re really almost incapable of stinging you.” He talked about bait hives that bee catalogues sell to capture swarms. “They don’t really work very well, but I found something that does. It’s a huge paper pot with a lid that you hang from a tree with wire. In it you place a lure, artificial queen pheromone, which is also available through the catalogues. “The scout bees will find the pot and look around for the queen but won’t find her. They’ll measure the pot, to make sure it’s big enough, then they’ll report back to the swarm that they’ve found a home. Two years ago I captured five swarms this way, but when I tried to use the queen pheromone again a year later it didn’t work. Appar- ently it has to be fresh.”
Mike said the Beekeepers Association worked with the County Extension Office, the Department of Wild- life and the Humane Society each spring, taking calls from frantic homeowners who discover a swarm on their property and want something done about it—immediately. It doesn’t matter that the bees will leave on their own in a day or so at the most, the swarms are perceived as a serious threat. So he or another beekeeper on the “swarm list” go out and capture the bees to add to their own colonies. Mike said it was fun to have people watch, impressed with his apparent bravery.
“One morning I got a call,” he told us. “There was a swarm at an elementary school, in a bush near the front door. By the time I got there, they had several classes standing out on the sidewalk to observe. I decided to give them a good show. There I was, standing close to the swarm, showing them my beekeeper’s suit, my veil and my gloves, taking my sweet time putting them on, all the while talking about the bees. After I finally dressed, I turned to begin the capture, and the bees,” Mike snapped his thick fingers, “took off just like that.” He laughed a deep belly-laugh. “I had taken too long. Boy, I can tell you, that was impressive.” By the end of the presentation all I could think was—This is so cool. I want to capture a swarm of bees.
* * *
I had to wait another year before I had a chance. The next spring I attended the Pikes Peak Beekeepers Associa- tion’s meeting. I went knowing it was almost swarm season and the beekeepers would be putting together a swarm list. I wanted to be on that list. The meeting, one of only four each year and the first one I had ever attended, took place at a neighborhood church. After the used beekeeping equipment sale in the parking lot, the thirty to forty members and their guests moved inside. As we settled into our folding chairs, waiting for the meeting to begin, I listened to the two men talking in the row in front of me.
The older of the two, who looked to be in his seventies, was thin and grizzled. He wore loose faded jeans and a worn madras print shirt. “The tree was taken down,” he said, in a tone loud enough for surrounding beekeep- ers to hear, “and about five hundred pounds of honey was recovered.”
“Five hundred?” said the man next to him. He was nice looking, neatly dressed, appeared to be in his mid- to-late fifties, just a little younger than my dad. He paused for a moment, considering. “You’d have to scrape it off, then filter it. There’d be a lot of junk in it; dead bees, stuff from the tree.”
“One time I captured a swarm in the woods, then found the tree it came from,” said the old-timer. “I knocked the tree down, took the rest of the bees and the honey, then cleaned up the honey and fed it back to them.” The buzzing quieted down as the president of the Association opened the meeting. He asked for guests to
42 Winter/Spring 2012
greenwomanmagazine.com
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