5-6-13…at 10:40 am there is an audible humming…the bees are revving up already.
I had heard about ‘tanging’ recently (banging a spoon on a cooking pot when bees start to swarm to get them to land close by and down low). I tried it out three times last week and it seemed to work. All three times were with one hive and all three times, the ‘swarm’ calmed down and went back into the hive after about 15 minutes. That seemed to be proof beyond a doubt the tanging worked. The third time I tried it out, I took video of it which can bee seen below…
On Saturday, May 4, they started in again about 10 or 11 am. My wife was not happy that she was doing all the work in our veggie garden while I was happily shooting video on the bees, so the bees had to do their thing while I had to do my thing. After 15 minutes of frenzied flying, they settled down again with no tanging. So there goes my theory.
On Sunday they were fine. On Monday they get all worked up again. Seems like there are lots more. I don’t have time to catch an impending swarm so I tang again to try to keep it close.
At 10-47, I start tanging to keep the swarm as close to home as possible.
Temperature at 66 deg. F (less than 20 deg. C) They wouldn’t be bearding, would they?
At 11:02 more bees are flying out. Some are flying excitedly above the hive as well as crawling onto the side.
At 11:05 there are quite a few on the front, but fewer are flying around and they are flying lower.
At 11:07 they are definitely calming now and actually filing back into the hive.
At 4:38 pm, I checked on them again. Looks like they decided to stay on the outside.
I shot this video and sped it up in parts to keep it relatively short. It was shot on May 3, so you can see the difference in the size of the ‘swarm,’ if it is a swarm…but if it isn’t, then what is it?
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
I don’t think that’s a swarm. But it could be that the bees are hanging out on the outside of the hive because there is no room for them on the inside without overheating the place. Chances are, you have swarm cells in the hive, but they are not advanced enough or the queen isn’t ready enough to actually swarm. A swarm looks like a upside-down cyclone of bees spewing from the hive and swirling around in the air, and it’s very loud. Best bet is to locate your queen – and split the hive in two (an artificial swarm of sorts).
It seems like a labour intensive way of trying to stop swarming! I agree with Leeann – I’d usually have a look inside and split the hive, putting one or two queen cells and plenty of nurse bees in a new box and leaving the old queen and no q.cells in the old location. This recreates swarm conditions without the bother of having to catch the swarm.
I’ve thought about splitting the hive…listened to the encouragements and explanations at the bee club. I have a cognitive dissonance about it. I like the idea of hive mentality. Let the bees pick out their own queen by building the queen cells and feeding them appropriately. I don’t feel qualified to pick and choose which ones should be allowed to live. Also I don’t want any more hives. I only wanted four hives max. I have five already. I don’t mind letting my swarm go out into the wooded area. So what am I doing by tanging them to stay close? Good question. Today I decided not to tang at all. They did their wild excited flying again. Loud buzzing included. I’m not sure how much louder it should get to qualify for a real swarm, but I could hear it halfway out to the garden. Twenty minutes later, everything is calm again. The bees that didn’t go into the hive just hung out on the face of it. Maybe they ARE too hot inside. It’s the largest hive now.
Interesting, sounds like they’re up to something! Perhaps they’re having fun teasing you.
They’ve been successful at that. We were both standing out there today saying, “This is the day, for sure” only to find them going back in.