Welcome back to the Bee Sanctuary! Today’s mission brought us to a local school for children with special needs. A new swarm had recently landed and chosen a rather inconvenient spot for a playground: inside a large tractor tire.

Usually, you’ll see us working at night to keep the African honeybee (Apis mellifera scutellata) calm, but after an on-site assessment, we decided a daylight rescue was safe. The swarm was brand new, meaning they had no established brood to protect, and the property was large enough to keep bystanders at a distance.

The Challenge: A Deep-Tread Hiding Spot

Bees love the circular, protected cavity of a tire, but it makes for a tricky extraction.

• Fresh and Brittle: Because the swarm had only just arrived, the comb they had started building was incredibly “white” and brittle. As we lifted the tire, a large clump of bees and several pieces of fresh wax dropped right out.
• The Search: We had to dig through the dirt and roots around the base of the tire to ensure the Queen wasn’t in the clump that fell. Finding her in the grass is like finding a needle in a haystack, so we moved with extra care.

The Gentle Approach: Patience Over Vacuums

While we often use our custom Bee Vac for speed, today we chose a more natural, less invasive method.

• The “Slow Move” Technique: We leaned the transport box directly against the tire where the bees were clustered. If you are patient and calm, the bees’ behavior follows your lead. They began to march upward into the box on their own.
• The Queen Prize: Our patience paid off! Ethan spotted the Queen—a beautiful, large, dark-colored lady—deep inside the cluster. Once we secured her in a queen cage and placed her between the frames, the rest of the job became simple. The pheromones do the work for you; the workers simply follow their leader home.

Technical Insights: New Swarm Behavior

• Comb vs. Honey: We tried a technique of placing brood comb against the swarm to entice them to climb up. Interestingly, it didn’t work as well as it usually does with established colonies. This suggests that for a brand-new swarm, simple proximity to the Queen is a much stronger motivator than the presence of drawn comb.
• The “Dark” Queen: We noticed this Queen was particularly dark. Younger queens or those from specific local lineages often have this deep, rich coloring, and she was a healthy, vigorous size—great news for the future of this hive.

Mission Accomplished

By avoiding the vacuum and working with the bees’ natural instincts, we performed a low-stress removal in the middle of a school day. We left the box on-site for a few hours to allow the stragglers to march in, ensuring the playground was 100% bee-free before the kids returned.

Want to see the difference between a new swarm and an established hive?

Check out our Swarm vs. Removal Comparison to see how we adjust our tactics. Don’t forget to Subscribe and hit the Like button to help us save more of Gauteng’s pollinators!