Swarm Removal

Have you ever seen a swarm of bees and were not sure where to turn? Swarms are a good thing, because it means that you have a healthy honey bee population in your area.  Healthy bees mean healthy plants, vegetables, and lots of beautiful flowers.  Swarms are also extremely gentle (all they want to do is find a new home), and the chance of being stung by bees in a swarm is extremely low.

Honey bee swarm in lilac

However, swarms can also be (or become) a nuisance, and should never be left alone to find their own home.  If a swarm is not captured and placed into a managed hive, it can find a new home in a hollow tree, or even in the walls of buildings, where they are considerably more difficult to remove.  Good beekeepers manage their hives to minimize swarming behavior in their hives, but it is very difficult to completely eliminate.  Towards that end, we offer complimentary swarm capture and removal services to our entire service area of North Seattle, Shoreline and Edmonds, regardless of whether it came from one of our hives or not.

Captured swarms will be moved into new hive equipment where they can continue to thrive, producing ou wonderful neighborhood honeys. 

When you call, please have the address where we can find the swarm, as well as a description of where the swarm is located and how long the swarm has been there (if you know).  If there are any circumstances about the location that could make it difficult to retrieve (e.g. 20 ft up in a tree), please let us know that as well. 

Swarm removal is time sensitive, so if we are not able to remove your swarm in the next couple hours, we may suggest calling one of the many other beekeepers that we know in order to make other removal arrangements. 

Please, if you know the beekeeper whose hive produced the swarm, attempt to contact that person first.  This is not necessary, but it is a courteous thing to do.

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