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Public honey bee swarm guidance
Found a cluster of honey bees?
Keep people and pets at a safe distance. If the bees are gathered in a temporary cluster on a tree, fence, building, or other surface, send the location and a photo through our free swarm report form.
Recognize the situation
Is it a swarm, or something else?
Honey bee swarms are often confused with established colonies, bumblebee nests, and wasps. Compare what you are looking at with the photographs below. Report the two marked “report this”; the rest are best handled another way.
Report this
A cloud of bees in the air
A swarm on the move can look like a drifting cloud of bees. It usually settles into a cluster nearby, so note where the bees land and report that location.
Report this
A cluster hanging in the open
Thousands of honey bees gathered into one dense mass on a branch, fence, post, or wall, with no comb and no hive around them. This is the case shown at the top of the page, and it is the easiest kind to collect.
Not a swarm
Steady traffic in and out of one opening
Bees flying in and out of a gap in a wall, roof, soffit, or tree cavity are an established colony living inside. That is a removal job for a professional rather than a swarm pickup.
Not a swarm
Comb has already been built
Once you can see pale wax comb, the colony has moved in and started building. An established colony cannot simply be lifted into a box the way a resting swarm can.
Not honey bees
A nest in the ground or a birdhouse
Bumblebees, and wasps or hornets, nest in small numbers in cavities, compost, and old rodent burrows. They are valuable pollinators and are best left alone rather than reported as a honey bee swarm.
Not honey bees
A few large, furry bees on flowers
Honey bees are slim and amber-brown. Round, very furry bees visiting flowers one at a time are bumblebees going about their day, not a swarm looking for a home.
Before you open the report
What a useful report includes
- The swarm location
- A photo taken from a safe distance
- The approximate height above the ground
- A way to reach you
Height matters more than people expect. A cluster at head height can be collected in minutes, while one high in a tree may need equipment that not every beekeeper carries.
Free to report, free to have collected
What happens after you report
The report enters the network
The information can be shared with participating beekeepers whose preferences match the report.
A beekeeper may follow up
If someone is available to respond, they can use the submitted contact details to coordinate.
Nationwide, honestly described
Where this service reaches
Swarm reports are accepted from anywhere in the United States. A report is matched to the beekeepers on Swarmkeeper whose own distance and height preferences fit it, which is why the person who responds is usually nearby rather than dispatched from somewhere else.
Being honest about the limit matters more than claiming full coverage: response depends on a beekeeper being active near you. That network is densest around our Pacific Northwest home base, where the Society runs its teaching apiary and school programs, and it is growing everywhere Swarmkeeper is. If nobody can reach your swarm, your local county or state beekeeping association is the next call, and a swarm will usually move on by itself within a few days.
There is no charge either way. Paid services usually quote somewhere around $75 to $200 to collect an accessible swarm, and a good deal more once bees are established inside a structure. Plenty of beekeepers collect swarms for nothing, because a free swarm is a free colony — the difficulty is finding one who is free right now. That is the part we handle, and the bees are collected alive and rehomed into a hive rather than killed.
Before you report
Common questions about honey bee swarms
- Is a honey bee swarm dangerous?
- A clustered swarm is about as calm as honey bees ever get. Defensive behaviour is triggered by having a nest to protect, and a swarm has none — no comb, no brood, no stored honey — and the bees have filled up on honey before leaving, which leaves them full and sluggish. That means low risk, not no risk: a swarm will sting if it is sprayed, knocked, or poked at. Keep people and pets well back, leave it alone, and let a beekeeper move it.
- How long will the swarm stay there?
- Usually somewhere between a few hours and about three days, and most often between one and three. The cluster is a staging post: scout bees are out inspecting possible homes, and the swarm leaves as soon as they agree on one. Warm dry weather shortens the stay, cold or wet weather lengthens it. Because the window is short and nobody can predict it, report a swarm the day you see it rather than waiting to see whether it moves on.
- What does it cost to have a swarm removed?
- Nothing, if you report it here. Paid services usually quote around $75 to $200 to collect a swarm that is easy to reach, and considerably more once bees have moved into a structure. Many beekeepers will collect a swarm for free anyway, because a swarm is a colony they did not have to buy — the hard part is finding one who is available at short notice, which is what this service does.
- The bees are inside a wall or chimney. Is that the same thing?
- No, and the difference matters. Once bees move into a cavity and start building wax comb they are an established colony, and getting them out is a cutout: opening the structure, removing comb, brood and honey, capturing the queen, then sealing and repairing. That needs building skills as well as beekeeping skills, so it is paid specialist work rather than a free volunteer collection. Report it anyway and we will point you in the right direction.
- Can I just spray them or seal the entrance?
- Please don't — it usually makes things worse and costs more in the end. The comb and honey stay inside the wall, where the honey ferments and softens in summer heat and can seep through drywall and ceilings. The abandoned comb draws wax moths, beetles, ants, and rodents, and the scent left in the cavity attracts fresh swarms to the same spot in later years. Extension services are consistent on this point: remove the nest, do not just kill the bees.
- When is swarm season?
- Swarming is mostly a spring event, tied to the colony building up as the first serious nectar flow arrives. Across most of the country the bulk of it happens between March and June, and any one place tends to see a concentrated peak of about six to eight weeks rather than a steady trickle. The season moves northward as spring does, so it starts earlier in the South and later at higher latitudes and elevations, and it shifts year to year with the weather.
- What happens to the bees after they are collected?
- The beekeeper holds a box under the cluster and shakes or brushes the bees into it. The queen is the whole job — once she is inside, the flying bees follow her in. The swarm then goes back to an apiary and into a standard hive, usually with sugar syrup to imitate a nectar flow and get the bees drawing comb. The first day or two decides it: if they settle and start building, you have a working colony.
Ready to send the report?
Open the report form when you have the location, safe-distance photo, approximate height, and your contact details ready. Reporting is free, and there is nothing to install.
Are you a beekeeper?
Swarmkeeper is the separate app for beekeepers and clubs who want to receive alerts and manage swarm responses.