Swarm Help

Beekeepers are often approached about winged, flying creatures, especially in the spring and summer period, when these generate a lot of activity. This part of the BBKA website is to help you find out what kind of insect you have and therefore what to do about it.

The most common insects are honeybees, bumblebees and wasps. There are other kinds of insects that are confused with these. This section shows how to tell them apart and what to do after that.

First Observations
First of all, make a note of the circumstances in which you see the insects, what they are doing and their size/colour.

Honey Bees

A single worker honeybee on newly built comb and a swarm of honeybees settled in a compost bin

The public are most likely to encounter honeybees when they are in the early stages of swarming. This is a critical activity for honeybees, as it is their means of colony reproduction. Despite all their activity, they are not usually aggressive to humans during this stage of their lives.

Honeybees vary in colour, from almost black (like a house-fly) to golden brown (like a teddy bear).

If a swarm is in progress, you will see a lot of bees flying and milling about over about a ten to twenty metre area – the air will appear thick with bees. If you watch carefully from a safe distance you will see the activity is centred around a cluster of bees on a branch (or sometimes a man-made object) usually some way off the ground. Eventually, in an hour or less, the flying activity will more-or-less cease and the hanging cluster of bees will remain in place. Often this cluster will look like a rugby ball.  This is a SWARM – it can be collected by a beekeeper and turned back into a productive honey-bee colony. Eventually, if left to itself, this cluster will fly off to a new home, usually within 24 hours.

Both photographs show a settled swarm of honeybees high in the branches of a tree

You may also find honeybees that have taken up residence in parts of buildings; cavity walls via airbricks and chimneys are both popular. In this case all you will see are bees coming and going in a purposeful way, not milling about. It may be possible to remove the bees, depending on access and structural considerations. Very, very occasionally you may come across a swarm cluster that has forgotten to move on and taken up permanent residence where it clustered, usually in a thick, well-sheltered hedge.

The removal of honey-bee colonies from structures needs to be planned by experts. Do not attempt it yourself because, even if you kill the honeybees, you will leave behind a lot of their honey which will attract other honeybees and wasps, so you will be back to where you started. Any residual pesticide will be picked up and transferred to other colonies of honeybees and kill them too. Most poisonings of honey bee colonies occur for this reason.

The so-called ‘killer bees’ (or more correctly, Africanised honeybees) beloved of movie-makers DO NOT OCCUR IN THE UK.

Wasps

A female worker wasp

These are often confused with honeybees, as they are more-or-less the same size. However, wasps ALWAYS have bright yellow and black stripes and body markings.
Wasp nests can be underground (sometimes) or hanging from an undisturbed branch or in a loft space. The nests are usually roughly spherical, ranging in size from that of a cricket ball to a large beach ball. They are an off-white or pastel brown/grey colour and made of paper chewed from soft wood by the wasps.


A small wasps nest from 2005 that is still in my shed. Photograph by Allan Cretney

Wasps to do not swarm or hang around in outdoor clusters.

While wasps have some value to the gardener in spring and summer as pollinators and predators of aphids and other small plant pests, in late summer they are otherwise a nuisance to the public and to honeybees (they rob beehives of their honey). The best course of action is usually destruction of the nest – this MUST be done by a licenced Pest Controller.

Hornets

These look like BIG wasps (at least two or three times the size); the colours, markings and nest structure are very similar.

Hornets and woodland nest

They are not common in domestic circumstances, preferring trees in woods.
LEAVE THEM WELL ALONE – the phrase “stirring up a hornets’ nest” is not just a cliché. They must be dealt with in the same way as wasps.

Bumblebees

These are also often confused with honeybees. However, they are larger, furrier and dark-coloured except for stripes across the ends of their tails. The stripes may be light tan or orange or brown and there may be a number of them, depending on the exact species. They also appear to have two sizes, the larger (a queen bumblebee) can be about the size of the end of your thumb and the smaller (the worker) is about the size of the end of your little finger.

Bumblebees can sting (but are very difficult to provoke) but do not swarm.

They can nest either in small cavities in walls or more commonly, in holes in the ground (old outdoor mouse nests are popular) or in cavities under sheds or under furniture in sheds. They do not like disturbance. The nest will be no more than 10-20 cm across.
Bumblebees also like to nest in undisturbed compost heaps, piles of small leaves, sticks, bricks and such-like, where they can keep warm and use the gaps in the heap as nesting space. If you stir up a compost heap and bees come out, they are probably bumblebees. Honeybees do not nest like this; wasps do only very rarely.

A bumblebees nest. Photograph by Chris Deaves

Bumblebees have suffered massive decline in the wild in recent years; this is a subject of great concern to conservationists. If at all possible leave them alone, the colony will die out naturally in the autumn. Bumblebees are valuable for pollination and children love to watch them.

If their flight path is a problem, try and deflect them upward with a screen. Fine green garden mesh is ideal for this. Once above head-height, you will not notice them. An up-ended clay flower pot with a single hole in the end is a good protection for a ground nest.

The nests can be moved if absolutely essential, but only about 50% survive the process.

Other Insects

The only other major class of insects that can be confused with the above are the solitary bees. These are often active earlier in the year than honey bees and wasps.  These often look like flies or honeybees, and as their name implies, live on their own. Apart from natural habitats, you may encounter them in domestic airbricks (the holes are just the right size for a single bee to live in) or small holes in soft dry ground such as old sand piles or where sheltered by an overhanging roof. They are harmless and best left alone – they do not swarm (by definition) and few can sting or are aggressive. If you wish to move them on, do so by gradually introducing some disturbance or making the ground damp, but only if you have to.

IN SUMMARY, WHAT DO I DO?

Honeybees
A beekeeper will be glad to collect swarms or advise on removing honeybees from structures. In general, pest controllers will not destroy honey bee colonies until a local beekeeper has confirmed to them that there is no other reasonable course of action. This is not a legal requirement, but is good practice – pest controllers like honey too!

Your local police and town hall Environmental Health Officers know how to contact beekeepers in your immediate area – they get lots of calls about this.

Failing that, the BBKA National Swarm Coordinators has a listing of beekeepers for most counties of the UK who may be able to help.

Do not destroy the colony yourself.

Please do not contact the BBKA headquarters directly unless it is a dire emergency – they can do little to help directly.

Questions about swarms
1. Why do beekeepers want to collect swarms? 
There are several reasons to collect swarms. Firstly, it is to remove the obvious nuisance to the local population (and to explain what is happening!) Secondly, a swarm is a potential functioning colony that can produce honey. Thirdly, if left to itself, it will move on and become a wild colony. In this case it will almost certainly die within a year or so and act as a potential source of disease infection to other beekeepers' colonies in the meantime. Finally, most bee-keeping associations use a system of swarm collection as a means of providing novice beekeepers with their first bees to keep.

2. How do I know what will happen to my swarm?
Most swarm collectors operate on behalf of local beekeeping associations and they collect swarms for the reasons given above - these all help with the maintenance of the bee population of the UK. Most local beekeeping associations are in turn affiliated to the British Beekeeping Association (BBKA), which seeks to promote responsible beekeeping and the care of bees. Any beekeeper belonging to such an association will have a membership card. Lookup contact details from our list of BBKA Member Associations. Some beekeeping associations are not members of the BBKA, but include perfectly competent beekeepers with the same objectives. A few local enquiries (e.g., with your local Environment Health department or police station) will help you find out if they have been providing this service for a long time.

Wasps & Hornets
If destruction is required, contact a licenced Pest Controller, via your local authority or Yellow Pages etc. A few beekeepers are also licenced Pest Controllers.

Bumble Bees
PLEASE leave in place until the autumn, when they will die naturally.
Screen the flight path to reduce any disturbance.
Do not attempt to destroy the colony.
If they must be moved, contact a beekeeper, as for honeybees.
These external website can help you identify which species of bumblebees you have Bombus - Bumble Bees of the World and The Bumblebee Pages

Other Bees
Leave alone – they will cause no harm.

This article was written by Chris Deaves BBKA Executive Committee Member 2008.

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