# The bee drum and drumming the bees



## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Has anyone had success luring in a swarm by drumming? What would be the ideal drum for this activity, what sort of drumming would you do, and where would you position the drum relative to your bait hive? Thanks, Paul.


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## Beekeeper Bill (Jul 22, 2005)

Hi Paul
Not much of an expert on drumming, But all my life I have heard old timers talking about this.
They used big Dishpans and something like a wooden spoon to bang on the pan and the swarm would settle somewhere, so last summer My Wife came in and told me there was a Swarm outside either leaving my hives or passing by. I went outside and decided to try Druming since they were almost gone, and low and behold they started coming back down and almost settled on me.
So it does apparently work dont know why.
Bill


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

TANGING - This term refers to the taming of a bee swarm (usually in flight) [Ref 20, p295]. This old European custom was actually began by an English kings decree, according to Roger and Kathy Hultgren. In England, the king declared by law, whenever a swarm of bees emerged, the beekeeper would drum on tin pans or ring a bell. This signaled that the bees that were in flight were his and he was the only one able to claim them. Gradually, as the custom was passed down through the years, it took on a new significance. People believed that the noise caused the queen to become confused and her bees to cluster around her. When English and German beekeepers immigrated to the colonies, they brought tanging w/ them and the tradition lasted well into the nineteenth century [Ref 20, p58].

DRUMMING is something different.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Drumming is when you tap on the tree or the hive to get them OUT.


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## MichelleB (Jan 29, 2006)

We had a discussion about this on our local club's board several months ago. I thought they were pulling a "snipe hunt" gag on the newbie (me), but apparently, one of our best-known older beekeepers is famous for being able to drum a swarm into a hive. 

As I was told, he used rhythmic hand drumming on the top of the lidded hive.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Drumming is when you tap on the tree or the hive to get them OUT.

Or at least to move either up or over. Bees were often drummed up into a new hive, when trying to clear the bees out of a bee gum. Also, in Egypt, the beekeepers keep their bees in clay tubes. The front end has the entrance, and most of the brood, while the back end has a clay plug and has most of the honey. To harvest the honey, they open the plug and drum on the tube. The bees move to the other end, and the honey is harvested. I have also read somewhere, that the Egyptians can (or did) use their voices in the same way...setting up vibrations that moved the bees to the other end of the clay tube hive.


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## xC0000005 (Nov 17, 2004)

I once watched a "tanging." An odd ritual but one worth seeing. Story Here. Drumming, as noted, is supposed to move the bees upward. Tanging was intended to make swarms move (at least when I saw it).


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

A fascinating story! Thanks for sharing it. You are a gifted writer... I felt like I was right there with you.


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## Craig W. (Feb 26, 2006)

My Dad, when he had bees, had a swarm go mid-way up a tall tree.

He stood by a sapling and beat on a cast iron fry pan and the swarm came down to the sapling.
I did not see this, this is what he told me.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>He stood by a sapling and beat on a cast iron fry pan and the swarm came down to the sapling.

I have heard two similar stories from other people who have performed similar "miracles". In both cases they were able to retrieve departing swarms by drumming on an empty hive with their hands. One man described what it was like as the swarm left the tree they were in and descended around him and entered the hive while he beat on it with his bare hands, wearing just shorts and a teeshirt. At one point he couldn't see anything for all the bees in the air around him, but he kept drumming with his hands. The bees never got under his hands and he received no stings.

Wassup with that?


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

I have called numerous swarms down while trying to get splits done in the spring. It's most successful if you do it when the swarm is issuing. I've alway assumed it related to some type of mechanism that might interpret loud noise and thunder and have found that metal on metal (hive tool on truck bumper) with a very sharp report works best. I've also found numerous short reports works better than well spaced ones. In virtually evry instance the swarm retuned to the issuing hive and in one case to one of the 5 nucs in a divide.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>In virtually evry instance the swarm retuned to the issuing hive

This is what happened in the two cases related to me. One person was a total novice and had only heard about "drumming" bees and the other was an experienced beekeeper that was inspecting a yard in a blueberry field when he saw a swarm issuing and about to vanish across the barrens.

The stuff we don't know about bees would fill a book.


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## suprstakr (Feb 10, 2006)

come-on George the rest of the story.


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## Beekeeper Bill (Jul 22, 2005)

Joel
It seems to me now that it was mentioned again that my Grandad did mention that it mimicked thunder and the threat of rain, causing them to settle somewhere.
Regardless it sure has sparked some interesting stories.
That is what makes this such a good place to visit.
Bill


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## Beekeeper Bill (Jul 22, 2005)

Joel
It seems to me now that it was mentioned again that my Grandad did mention that it mimicked thunder and the threat of rain, causing them to settle somewhere.
Regardless it sure has sparked some interesting stories.
That is what makes this such a good place to visit.
Bill


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## paintingpreacher (Jul 29, 2006)

When I was a teenager, many years ago, I helped a couple ole gentlemen with their bees. Everytime we cut a bee tree they would beat on the front of the hive with their hive tool. I don't really know why but it seemed to help guide the bees inside.
My grandmother would beat on a metal pan and and we boys would come a running in the back door, and we would settle like bees around the supper table. Maybe the bees think its suppertime.


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## leamon (Mar 30, 2006)

Beautifully written story 005. Making noise to cause a swarm to settle was practiced when I was a child. Dad got his first swarm that way. Don't know if the noise helped or not.
leamon


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

All of the above comments/stories/etc. exemplifies the way beekeepers view everything about beekeeping. 

If I paint my hive pink and keep 3 round (not flat) rocks on TC, and while doing so, the does NOT swarm, have I found the perfect system of swarm control?

Is it due to the paint, or color?
Why 3 rocks? Will 4 make it better?
What will flat rocks do?

Just a thought!


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## xC0000005 (Nov 17, 2004)

leamon - glad you enjoyed it.

Dave - I agree. The way it was explained to me meshes now completely with what swarms do naturally. The fact was that the behavior meshed with their beliefs, and so it was re-inforced. Now I don't dispute that the hives that remained reacted to the noise. Just that I'm not certain that the awful noise made the swarm move.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

I think we often do something (crazy or otherwise), and after doing so, we get a "result" and view the result as absolutely occurring because of what we did. 

The problem is, was the "result" caused by what we did, or did it just happen (at about the right time)?

Pink paint sounds like good for mite control too!


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## cerezha (Oct 11, 2011)

Craig W. said:


> ...He stood by a sapling and beat on a cast iron fry pan and the swarm came down to the sapling...


 It is really weird, but I have personal experience today. I noticed bees swarming at the top of our jacaranda-tree. I immediately realized that there is no way I can get bees from that location. I remembered reading at beesource about drumming-tunging the bees. So, I grab a metal lid from the pot and spoon and start making a noise thinking about all my neighbors. After ~5-10 min of making noise, bees moved lover literally surrounding me. Than they get into incomplete box from beehive (not a beehive), which I forgot to put in better place. At this moment my neighbor-beekeeper show up asking what is this noise about... I gave him "tools" and asked to continue, because I need to make the box suitable for living ... bees keep going into the box while my neighbor reluctantly made some noise... I reduced entrance and seal most of the gaps in the box; it is more or less beehive now. I do not think that this swarm is viable because it is quite small, but they have place to stay. Very interesting experience.


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

Great story.


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## bbbthingmaker (Sep 26, 2010)

Bee Drums for sale. Large bass drum tuned to attract swarms. Walk around your neighborhood beating this drum and you'll soon be covered up with swarms. Be the envy of your bee club. Branch attached for swarm to land in. Extra branches available. Just 11 easy payments of $19.95 (plus shipping and handling). contact me at I'lltakeyourmoney.com.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Having watched several swarms my daughter asked. "How do they ever find the queen and so quickly?" I am wondering if it has to do with vibration. I don't need to know why bees will do something if I know they somewhat reliably will do something.


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## mdax (Apr 29, 2013)

There is no evidence that tanging does anything other than cause noise. 

I'm sure there are as many anecdotal stories of it working as there are water witching...which doesn't make either true. 
Science is pretty cool; A hypothesis that can be independently tested and verified is key to my belief.

The most recent study I could find:
Journal of Apicultural Research Vol. 52 (5) pp. 190-193

"Tanging, the act of hitting metal objects together to produce a clanging sound, is used by some beekeepers to induce flying swarms to settle. The effectiveness of this practice is anecdotally supported, but has never been experimentally tested. In this experiment, four swarms were exposed to tanging during the first 255 ± 112 m of their flights to new nest sites. In total, tanging was performed over 1019 m, for 22 min 56 sec. No evidence was found that tanging causes a flying swarm to settle."


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I have serious doubts about tanging, but I've never had time to try it. I'm always busy gathering my equipment to catch the swarm... not getting pots and pans... But it's pretty difficult to prove or disprove such a general concept as tanging. What is the precise definition of tanging? What volume? What frequency? How far away? At what point in the swarming process (leaving the hive, clustered on a tree, leaving the tree etc.) You would have to do such a large number of factors in every combination with enough swarms to be statistically significant. Since bees can't hear but they can feel vibration, IF it works it would have to be a vibration that the bees can feel, which pretty much limits it to lower frequency and pretty much limits it to high volumes. But that's still a range of situations. I don't think science can answer the question. Without a huge number of experiments using different combinations of things you can't really tell anything and then you could only say with increasing or decreasing assurance that the statistics seem to support that it does or does not work...

I have many times in my life heard "we tried that and it didn't work" and I tweaked it and made it work...


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## bugmeister (Feb 26, 2013)

I also read somewhere that drumming alerted the surrounding beeyard inhabitants in old Europe that a swarm had issued from ones hive and the drumming conveyed ownership until retrieval of the swarmed bees. An old fashioned local 'tweet"!B
Almost every town in new England has an old " bull pen", where bulls (cows) that broke out of their paddocks and freely roaming (and mating) were captured and held until owner could retrieve. No alarm- just a big bull that everyone using the road would see and report up the lane. B


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