What to do if you spot a swarm of Honeybees

Who are you going to call if you see thousands of bees swarming? Eventually they may choose to alight in your favourite tree, garden bush or even the bird table.

During April and June honeybees will follow their queen to find a new home. Remain calm, it is also sensible to keep your distance, and keep children and pets indoors.

Remember, these vital pollinators need care and not a pest controller. It is much better for the bee’s survival if you phone your local beekeeping association (East Dorset Beekeeping Association contact is given at the end of this article), to collect them, before the little scout bees decide your chimney is the ideal place to live.

A bee swarm may rest for between a few hours and even two days before their scout bees have come back to tell them about a perfect permanent nest.

Firstly, a colony of bees prepares to swarm when they are raising lots of baby bees and it is getting crowded in their original hive. The queen bee decides to take half of the hive with her to find a new home. That could be between 1,500 and 30,000 bees including workers (female bees) and drones (male bees).

Secondly, the bee’s tummies will be engorged with honey for their flight. Because of this they will be in a docile, passive state of mind. In addition, they do not have a home to defend.

East Dorset Beekeepers have a swarm coordinator who can be contacted via the website and will try to find someone to come to your home, for free, to collect them.

Your trained swarm collector will be a passionate beekeeper who will ask a number of questions to help you identify if you have honeybees, or if you are describing wasps or hornets. They may ask you to forward a photo. Please be ready with as much information about the location of the swarm as possible in case a stepladder is needed.

The swarm collector will guide you through what happens on the phone and arrange to pop over to your address if they are honeybees. You can learn a lot by watching from a safe area, preferably indoors.

To get the information, and who to call, check out the EDBKA interactive map on their new EDBKA website - https://edbka.org.uk/swarm/

Product code: 1289