A honey bee swarm in your garden

A swarm hanging in a tree looks dramatic and almost never is. The bees filled themselves with honey before they left the hive, they have no nest to defend, and this is the calmest they will ever be. But they do not stay. Within a few hours to a couple of days they will have found a new home — and if that home is a wall, nobody can take them out as a swarm any more.

Call Svärmtelefonen: 0766-86 07 01

It is Biodlarna’s free national line for the public. You key in the postcode where the swarm is sitting and are connected to a swarm catcher in that area. Swarm catchers are beekeepers with at least three years’ experience, and they handle bee swarms only.

We are connected to it. If the swarm is in our area the call can come through to us — it already has at least once. Which of us answers depends on the postcode and on who is free, and that is exactly as it should be: what matters is that somebody gets there in time, not that it is us.

We collect across northern Stockholm. Inside Österåker municipality it costs nothing at all — no call-out fee and no travel. Outside the municipality the collection itself is still free, but travel is added. We get the bees, you get your garden back, and nothing has to die for it.

Wasps and hornets are not our trade

And the reason is not that we are busy. That work is done by killing the insects with poison, and it is a pest-control trade. We do the opposite: the swarm is taken alive, moved into a hive, and goes on being a colony. That is the whole point of us driving out.

So if you are not sure what you have, read the questions at the bottom. It takes half a minute and it decides who you should be calling.

What to do while you wait

• Keep your distance, but do not panic. A few metres is enough. Keep children and dogs away.
• Spray nothing. Not water, not aerosol, no smoke. It scatters or stresses the swarm, which makes collecting it harder rather than easier.
• Note the height and the place. Two metres up an apple tree and twelve metres up a pine are two completely different jobs.
• Take a photo if you can. It usually settles the honey-bee question before anyone drives anywhere.

When the bees have already moved into the building

Sometimes the swarm gets there first. The bees are then inside a wall, under a roof or in a chimney, on comb they built themselves, and they can no longer be lifted down as a swarm. That does not mean we say no — it means the job looks different. Panelling, trim or cladding may have to come off to reach the bees and the comb.

The work is still free. We do not charge for our time, and we do not charge for collecting and moving the bees. But materials that get used — silicone, expanding foam, tape and the like — are bought in and passed on at cost, with the receipt. We add nothing to them.

But be clear about what we leave behind. We are beekeepers, not builders. We seal up and make good provisionally, so the house is weathertight and no new bees find their way in — but restoring the wall to its original condition is a trade job, and a qualified tradesperson should do it afterwards. That is yours to arrange, and it is not part of what we do.

We come and look first. A nest inside a structure cannot be judged from a photograph. We come out and survey it on site, and tell you the following day whether we can do the job or not. Coming to look costs nothing, and a no is an honest answer — better that you get it from us than that we start opening a wall we should have left alone.

What gets opened is agreed before we start, not while we are standing there. Send a photo of where the bees are going in and out if you can — it says a great deal ahead of the survey.

We also do not sell colonies or nucs. If you want to start keeping bees, the order to do it in is in the beginner’s checklist, and the road goes through your local association rather than through us.

Or report the swarm here

If you would rather type than ring, this works. We will call you back — it is quicker than an exchange of emails, and a swarm has no time for that. If it is high up or has been there a while, call Svärmtelefonen as well, so that somebody gets there in time.

Common questions