Matt was enjoying a rare relaxed day on Saturday 18th May 2024 when his phone buzzed. It was a message from his friend who hosts his colonies: “Your bees are swarming!”
Cue: panic mode!
Matt had never dealt with a swarm before. What should he do? What should he do?! Matt took a deep breath and tried to remember his beginner beekeeping training. He ran through the details in his mind while he ran frantically around his house gathering any equipment that might be relevant and hastily loading it into his car. Mind whirring, he drove to the apiary. What would he find when he got there?
By the time he arrived, the swarming bees had left the hive, flown away and clustered… somewhere. So, first on Matt’s agenda was to find them. Fortunately, the temporary location of a cluster is usually not far from their former hive. However, they won’t stay there any longer than necessary so Matt had to seek them out as quickly as possible.
After ~15 minutes, he spotted them! There they were, high up in a tree behind his friend’s garden studio. Matt was overjoyed that he hadn’t lost them.
They really were rather high up though… And Matt’s second task was to reach them. There was one large cluster on a branch high in the tree and a second small cluster on a branch even higher in the tree. The queen had to be inside one of them and Matt could only hope it was the larger one.
After negotiating with foliage to get a ladder into position, Matt climbed to his bees, one rung at a time. Precariously positioned, he cut the branch from the tree, carried down the larger cluster and shook the bees into a box. If the queen was in there, the next step should be relatively easy. Using a long pole, he disturbed the small cluster. The idea was that they would vacate the branch, realise the queen was in the box and fly to her. They didn’t. They went right back to their spot on the branch. So, the queen was with the smaller cluster. Damn.
Matt had to gather the courage, and a taller ladder, to reach them way up high in the tree. He’s a braver person than I am! He did it. He brought them down and shook them into the box. As the flying stragglers gradually settled in the box too, Matt gained the all-important confidence that he had the queen.
The whole colony was back together with Matt.
It was time for phase two: provide them with a home.
Matt assembled a hive and shook the bees from the box into their new house, then left them alone for a few days while they settled in. When he came back to check on them, they hadn’t constructed comb on the frames to store food, painted the walls with propolis, or filled the nursery with little ones. Instead, they were clustered on the entrance of the hive. Nothing is ever simple, is it?
The colony seemed to be determined to escape Matt’s apiary, but he was determined to keep them there! He just needed to find a way to make the hive more appealing. After completing a little online research, he decided to give them something to protect. A group of grown women alone can travel freely but they wouldn’t abandon tiny children who need them. Matt installed a frame of honey and a frame of unsealed brood from the hive they’d swarmed from on 18th May. Sure enough, the ladies moved in to raise the brood and finally made the hive their home.
Matt was amazed by how quickly they built up. Three months to the day after swarming, he found that they’d produced beautiful frames of summer honey. A month after that, they’d grown to fill two brood boxes and two supers, and they’d become the strongest colony in the apiary!
That would be a satisfying ending to the tale, wouldn’t it?
But the story continues: Matt’s determination may have won in the short term but the bees played the long game. Do you remember the colony who flew away from the apiary in Matt’s Diary: April 2025? That was them!
