Bait Hive.

There was a good turn out for the visit to our club's most proficient apiarist. He is unusual in that he believes in minimal intervention, working to the maxim, “Work with nature and let the bees follow their instincts.” While I understand his techniques, I have neither the time not the skills to work such a system. I work very hard to prevent my bees from swarming; if I fail then I normally lose a colony of bees together with the honey harvest that it would have produced for me. This man knows when each of his colonies is going to swarm and is there waiting for it; when it happens, the bees either land in a bush or on a fence post, or they go straight into one of his bait hives.

If they go into a hive, they're whisked off to an out apiary for a month before returning here to a new home - otherwise they get confused; if they land anywhere else, they're collected in a skep and poured onto a wooden ramp that leads up to their new hive. The latter is fascinating to watch, after a little confused milling about, the bees smell the wax in the hive and walk up into it; the first few start fanning pheromones over the assembled masses and they all obediently march into the hive; if you are lucky, you might see a gap in the throng, with the queen in the middle as she walks up.