Urban Swarm Capture Network: Davis and Beyond

Urban  beekeeping is on the rise as folks recognize the beauty and power of agrarian renaissance and rewilding as a cure-all for social ills! Cultivating city space as a garden, farm, orchard or wild, natural place quite simply results in more interactions between humans and wild things! That is as it should be! But nowhere is the challenge of investing in ecological wealth more evident than in the increased occurrence of wild swarms of honeybees in urban space. In Davis CA, where the urban swarm capture network got started that can be as many as 60 swarms a year or more! And with many of those ending up in walls, chimneys and gutters, it becomes critical to provide a strategy for successful management and diplomacy bees, their keepers, and the many folks who live on the fruits of their labor but may not exactly want to Host them in their living room. Unwanted interactions between bees and people is exactly what the urban swarm capture network was invented to prevent!

Building a swarm capture network is fairly simple! The basic idea is to hang light-weight, cardboard nesting boxes  all over the city. These are specially dimensioned to attract honeybees and they vastly prefer them to chimneys and drain pipes. To manage them we gather all the beekeepers and cool folks who care about honeybees into a mutual support group. As soon as a swarm catcher hive us occupied, a beekeeper empties it into their hive and returns the catcher to active duty. It's quick and easy for them and the bees are very desirable: they are healthier and more locally adapted than bees bought from suppliers. And the bees can live out their lives happily pollinating city flowers and making us fruits and veggies to eat! 

Contributions to this cause go toward building and expanding the swarm capture network. We make our own swarm hives and give them out freely to "hosts". We also help install them, and then make sure the host is connected into the local network of keepers so the hive can reliably be emptied. 

We also utilize the hives as an art installation as a way to introduce the project in new places! In Davis we installed 77 hives in Central Park for a spectacular display of urban ecology as art and caught 7 swarms to the delight of Farmer's Market goers and city officials.

Most importantly, our project is an artwork that raises awareness and improves consciousness and sensitivity to our impact as well as the pleasure and beauty of growing a healthy ecosystem in places where people live! Give with confidence! Long live the Queen!