Swarm help

Honey bees can cause a problem when they swarm, usually from May to July, ending up somewhere in your garden or in an outbuilding or even a chimney. See Getting Advice for a swarm description and who to contact to come and collect them. Viable swarms will be taken away to the teaching apiary, checked for health and passed on to new beekeepers looking for their first colony.

Please note that, while we greately appreciate your intention to remove bees in a humane way, rescuing bees from high buildings and chimneys is usually a very complex and sometimes risky task, as it often involves ladders or even scaffolds, and thus need to be undertaken by professionals specialised in this sort of swarm collection.  

Our team of volunteers are not trained or ensured to perform such a task, but thanksfully there are companies who specialise  in this sort of work. Please go to the "Getting Advice" or "Contact Us" pages for more information on contacts. 

See Identifying Honey Bees for a brief description of what they look like and how they behave. See the Not Honey Bees to identify the other more common and similar insects.