The Old BeeKeeper

A honey bee swarm, which is the mechanism by which a honey bee colony reproduces (divides), is a fairly distinctive entity, both in the air and when settled in a bush(left) or hanging from a tree(right).

The problem is they can cause a nuisance and potentially if left to find their own homes, assuming there is a suitable void in the vicinity, a significant problem

The British Bee Keepers Association (BBKA) and their local branch divisions all offer swarm removal assistance if you discover a swarm or one lands in you garden or on the wall of your house/garage/shed

In the first instance identifying that they are honey bees and not Bumblebees, Solitary Bees, Wasps or Hornets is crucial. The Wokingham and District Beekeeping Association web page has a guide to doing this on their "Need Help with a Swarm" web page.

Both the WDBKA Swarm page, and the BBKA Swarm page have locating mechanisms to find the closest registered swarm collector to your address

All BBKA swarm collectors are volunteers and all are Bee Keepers themselves. The BBKA insurance only allows collecting of swarm if the collector deems they are not at risk to do so, so some will not collect swarms in trees or high up if it involves working off a ladder. The insurance also does not cover extracting bees from the walls of buildings, roof spaces, or similar. This includes trees as it often involves felling the tree to remove the bees and most Tree Surgeons won't fell a tree with bees in - a sort of catch 22 if you like

Should you need bees removed from a tree then depending on the circumstances I can either remove bees at your risk or potentially put you intouch with a Tree Surgeon who is willing to undertake the job. If you're a Tree Surgeon and encounter a colony of bees in a Tree then I'm happy to help and assist, just get in touch either via email or via my Facebook Page