There were probably 4X to 5X the bees you can see on the video. It was hard for me to judge, but this didn't seem like a large swarm. You can see a few bees walk in, but what you want is for them to do a "bee march". I have another video where there was a swarm on the ground, and within 5 minutes, all of the bees just walked right in...

Last night received a call from the local outlet mall. Of course, I forgot my video camera and tripod, so I only took a few second video linked below. Typically swarms will walk right into the box when you set it up next to them like this, but we couldn't get them to move. Waited and waited. Finally, we just moved the bees by hand, using our hive tools and bee brush to collect them, drop them on the nuc (stands for nucleus - i.e., small colony) box landing board, at which point they walked right in. Took over an hour, but I guess it was better than sitting on my butt watching TV...although I admit I enjoy that and had already done that for a couple of hours yesterday.

This swarm was so gentle. I put my face protection on, but probably didn't need it. I didn't wear gloves and thought a few times I might get popped, but the bees were very nice...despite a few clumsy moves by me when I was trying to encourage them to go in the box. When I took the video, I had nothing on. Swarms are hardly every aggressive - I walk up to within a few feet of them (this one to get a close look, my face was about two feet away on numerous occasions while we watched them and wished them to walk in the box.

The outlet mall couldn't get anyone to return their calls. This time of year, no one really wants bees because it is too late for honey and a lot of effort to try to keep them alive over the winter (easy to sell a swarm of bees in the spring). I am hoping that there is a local beekeeper that lost their colony and would prefer to have a colony instead of an empty box (which has a myriad of problems).

I really like my hobby. Happy to answer questions. Link below.


Watch this video on YouTube