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www.urban-forestry.com 25 Last summer was my first year as beekeep- er, and I was keen to increase my stock of bees, so I placed my name on a list kept by the local beekeeper's association to answer swarm calls. Sure enough, in mid- June a woman phoned in that a swarm of honeybees had been clustered in her cottonwood tree for three days. I called her for details, and it sounded like this was indeed honeybees and not wasps, and that they were swarmed on a branch, and not defending a nest. I arrived at her house, and together we examined the soccer-ball-sized swarm 8 to 10 meters (26 to 33 feet) high in her tree, out on a lateral branch far from the trunk. I had a 24-foot (7-m) extension ladder and a 12-foot (3.6-m) pole with an open cardboard box hang- ing from the tip to collect the swarm if I could reach it. I climbed to the top of the ladder, up the trunk a little, and out on a sturdy lower branch, having clipped myself on a tether to the main trunk first. I was able to reach out to get the collection box underneath the swarm with the hook on the end of the pole looped over the branch on which they were clustered. A sharp tug on the pole dislodged the clump of bees, and they landed with an audible thump and cloud of airborne bees in the box. I gradually lowered the box, allowing the bees in flight A honeybee swarm as seen on mainehoneybees.com. to rejoin their queen as I climbed down the ladder to the ground. After another twenty minutes on the ground, only 20 to 30 bees were left circling the box, and the rest were all happily clustered inside. I closed up the opening to the box, leaving it in the shade, with an open- ing for stragglers and returning scouts. I took the box home later that evening, and placed them in a new and inviting home the next morning. They happily built lots of new comb over the following weeks, and by September had built a healthy colony that showed every sign of coming through last winter strong and healthy. The homeowner was an eager observer of the whole process and was very happy to see the bees safe in a suitable home. The bees were calm and peaceful throughout, and I did the whole collection in shorts and a T-shirt, without any stings. Swarming bees have no home or honey to defend, and are at their most doc- ile and tractable if you move slowly and deliberately. Swarm collections can look dramatic, but are one of the safest times for handling bees, and even newbies like me can do a good job of collecting bees looking for a good home. —Trevor Janz, Beekeeper, Kootenay, British Columbia