I have done this twice now when i caught them leaving the hive.They never went back to the hive, but did start to cluster close by. They usually won't go very far from the hive when they swarm anyway, but by banging on something both of the hives i seen leaving didn't go but about 15 ft. from there hive to cluster. So maybe it works?

 

I think they would have landed in the same spot without the banging. when I was 5 my grandmother gave me a salt shaker and told me if I put some on a birds tail I could catch it. same thing. lol

 

my grandma told me the same thing sent me out with the salt shaker, and 15 min later I came back with a live bird.....she couldn't believe it asked how I got the salt on it's tail and I said a threw the shaker at it. LOL

 

I have no idea if banging works or not, but one of my very first memories of my very conservative Amish great grandfather was him banging pans together in the bee yard. I thought he had gone off his rocker and my mother explAined he was stopping a swarm. I do not recall if they stayed close or left. He had many hives and bees were his passion. For the longest time I thought that honey only came in the comb in those little wooden things.

 

Harley looks like we were victims of child abuse, lol

 

I'm not sure if it works or not but I'm guessing it is entertaining to on lookers

 

I remember my dad and uncle 58 yr ago would have us kids bang on pots and lids to stop a swarm...did it work..I don't remember, but it has been around a long time..Thanks you for helping with the memories

 

It works! I landed swarm this way.

 

I should have tried it last Friday, but I didn't even think. I was busy getting a bait hive set up. After I set it up, though, it would have been worth a try. They were so far up in the Maple tree I couldn't even see the cluster, but I could see and hear the bees around it... So far I've never tried it. It always seemed like better use of my time to try to catch them...

 

I don't think it will break a cluster, but when they are all in the air it seems to block comuication and bring them back near or in the hive. My swarm was going high in a maple tree where I could never catch it. It was very cool!!! I will try it again if I get the chance

 

It works
Over the last few years I've landed every swarm I tanged
I have watch them turn and come back in the direction they
came from.
They don't usually return to hive but they don't go far
I will say many go back to the box but not all
I'll bet on it anyday

 

An old uncle of mine would get up early each morning while it was still dark. He'd make a pot of coffee and then drink it while sitting on the porch. A few minutes later, the Sun would come up. He'd smile and say "yup, works every time."

 

Interesting. I had an old timer bee keeper swear that if I thumped the empty hive, the swarms would go single file into the box. I laughed, as it reminded me of the pied piper.
But, since that time, I have heard of more people discussing that method. So, I do not always understand the mechanics of nature or the Bees.

 

I once got out of my car and had a swarm of bees above my head. I just stood under them and moved when they moved. They landed nearby at ground level after 5 minutes. That's just my scientific research in this subject and the only swarm in the air I have dealt with. That is 100% you know.

 

DanielD, if only you had been beating on a pot you could come here and tell us how well it worked for you!

 

>Interesting. I had an old timer bee keeper swear that if I thumped the empty hive, the swarms would go single file into the box. I laughed, as it reminded me of the pied piper.

Drumming...

 

I thought drumming sent them OUT of the box...?

 

theres 2 old beekeepers around here that swear "drumming" works. I haven't seen them do it though.

 

beating on pots is an old wives tail. If they land its because they had already decided to. the drumming does work as another commercial and myself tried it as an experiment. If done right they boil out of the top of the hive. nothing single file about it.

 

Drumming... If done right they boil out of the top of the hive. nothing single file about it.

The other posters seem to be saying they put a box near the swarm and then drum on it and bees march in.

I had an old timer bee keeper swear that if I thumped the empty hive, the swarms would go single file into the box.

I'm doubtful. It makes sense that it would make them come out of the box, but drumming to make a swarm go in... Nah.

Honestly, it all reaks of older beekeepers "hazing" newer people. They probably got the question a thousand times... "My hive swarmed and they're 60 feet up in a tree, what can I do?" "Oh, go grab a pot and a spoon and beat on it... sometimes it makes them come down."
Also doing nothing sometimes makes them come down, right?

I captured a swarm earlier this year, I wish I'd have had a pot to beat on when I took this video:

 

My wife said when she was a kid, she watched her dad do it and the swarm actually landed on his outstretched arm.. I've never tried it.

 

You don't have to put something down just beecause You don't believe or understand it. Bees are like people, they are different, I believe it works some time..JMO..BEE HAPPY:gh:

 

Wish there was a like button on here, JS

 

drumming drives bees out. I think it was first used to transfer bees out of logs into a hive set on top. has nothing to do with swarms or swarming.

 

Tanging may be amusing to watch, but it couldn't be nearly as much fun as watching a couple of my friends try to catch swarms out of a tree with a bucket on the end of a 40 ft pole.

 

JWCARLSON - if you quote me to ridicule me, please quote me entirely! to finish my quote you used in part; "I laughed, as it reminded me of the pied piper."
Thus meaning I believed it as much as I believed the story of the Pied Piper. I do believe old timers like to haze new beeks.

 

This has nothing to do with tanging, but I dump a swarm onto a sheet leading up to the lower entrance of a hive, drum on the side of the hive with an entrance reducer or a hive tool, and the bees march right into the hive. Been doing it for nearly 70 years and it has never failed.

Steve

 

It's not a new idea by any means:

'Aristotle, who lived over 2200 years ago, tells, in his “Story of Animals,'' Lib. IX: “Bees seem to have a liking for noise and from this observation it is claimed that, by making a noise and striking upon earthen jars, one can gather the swarm in the hive. However, whether they hear or not, we do not know whether it is pleasure or fear which induces them to gather together when there is a noise.” '--C.P. Dadant 1922 ABJ in a note in Letters to Huber

"The custom of beating kettles and caldrons has been practiced at all times and I believe everywhere, and I do not understand any better than you do what influence it could have. The bees which are hived in glass hives do not seem to take any notice of thunder. I have caused the beating of drums about my apiary and, although I used, to make a noise, all the cauldrons, The watering-pots and the bells, that has never succeeded in stopping a flying swarm for me; one succeeds a great deal better in this by throwing at them water or dirt. This prejudice has perhaps been established for the benefit of bee owners, who, knowing through this noise that a swarm is out, soon ascertain whether it has escaped from their apiary and may claim it; I have seen that reason in Oliver De Serres' or in some other agricultural book."--Francis Huber, in a letter to Miss Elisa De Portes