You know when your bees have been ‘tanged’!

Firstly, Happy New Year to all!  We hope you had a chance for some relaxation recently and are as keen as we are to embrace 2020 with gusto :-)  To get the ball rolling, here's a first blog which was inspired by our swarm planning for this year... it's amazing what you can find!
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Winter is almost behind us, so we’re now looking forward to the challenges of the new beekeeping season. In no time at all the bees will be flying and, if all goes well, swarming. Despite careful checks and the utmost vigilance, everyone who has ever kept bees will have, at some point, missed a swarm. The noise bees make when swarming is incredible and unmistakeable, a large thrumming dark cloud, growing bigger and bigger as more bees leave the hive.

Then they’re off, landing several minutes later in a cluster, a ‘holding stage’, before they leave for their new home.

We’re always ready with our ‘swarm kit’ to go and collect bees when people call to tell us about a swarm sighting. Collecting them often entails climbing ladders as swarm clusters can be found in any number of places, usually high up and awkward to get at. That’s why we’re now keen to try out the centuries-old practice of ‘tanging’ bees while they’re swarming and before they cluster. No, it’s not feeding the bees a sugary orange drink! Standing close to the cloud of bees, the beekeeper takes a metal pot or pan and bangs it repeatedly and loudly. Within a short space of time the bees supposedly either go back into the original hive if close by, or drop from the sky and cluster in a low easily accessible place so that the beekeeper can claim them. The noise also alerts people to the fact that bees are swarming, and also tells landowners that a beekeeper is merely chasing bees and therefore potentially trespassing for a good reason. Allegedly.

Studies and experiments have been carried out across the world with varying results, although in 2013 The Journal of Apicultural Research stated that it does not work. However, there are several YouTube videos showing beekeepers successfully coaxing bees from the air down into boxes by banging tins. The theory is that the swarming bees will pick up on the vibrations which either tell them there’s a hollow space nearby, a likely new home, or that there is distant thunder and so they need to find shelter quickly. It’s reasonable to believe that the vibrations do disrupt swarms and those who’ve had success with this method used items that produce a low smooth tone, with a constant rhythmic banging being the key factor. But remember, don’t bang without chatting to a beekeeper first!

So, have any of you tried tanging a swarm? If so, do please let us know in the comments as we'd love to find out if it worked for you.