# Banging metal to "call" or "tang" a flying swarm down to a lower bush or small tree. .



## ifixoldhouses (Feb 27, 2019)

I hear it works if the queen is still in the air.


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## Boondocks (Sep 16, 2020)

ifixoldhouses said:


> I hear it works if the queen is still in the air.


I looked at your website. I got one of those Gorilla carts earlier this year. They are great for beekeeping. Hives fit right on them and I like that you can take the sides off.


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## ifixoldhouses (Feb 27, 2019)

Boondocks said:


> I looked at your website. I got one of those Gorilla carts earlier this year. They are great for beekeeping. Hives fit right on them and I like that you can take the sides off.


Yes they are great, I move hives around and all.


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## davemal (Mar 6, 2015)

Boondocks said:


> I was looking at this video by Joe May:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes. Have done it 5 years in a row. My mentee called me yesterday. I could hear her young son banging on a kettle in the background. She was so excited that the bees were doing just as I told her they would - they were coming back to the hive entrance. They even caused a traffic jam as they all tried getting back in. Watch this last tang I did which was in 2019.


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## Emmett (Mar 24, 2021)

So does tanging stop the swarm from landing in a tree/bush farther away than you want?


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## Boondocks (Sep 16, 2020)

Emmett said:


> So does tanging stop the swarm from landing in a tree/bush farther away than you want?


From my understanding, if the queen and swarm are flying around, tanging will draw them closer to you. In Joe may's video he first got them to land in a smaller tree next to him. While he got his stuff, they flew to the empty queen cages he had laying out. 
And DaveMal got them to go back into the hive


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## muskrat (Jul 22, 2016)

Don't forget that sometimes the new queen won't go with the swarm the first time they leave (or the second or third time either). I split a hive a couple weeks ago but left last years queen as she was doing so good. Later that same day they swarmed. I was lucky and caught them, and her, and got them in another hive. Three days later they "swarmed" but before I could get my stuff they were back in the hive. That afternoon they did it again and settled on the same limb as before. Instead of trying to catch them I went in the hive and sure enough the virgin queen was still there. Fifteen minuets later the swarm was back in the box. Next day same thing again. Big swarm in tree but queen in box so swarm came back thirty minuets later. That afternoon they went out again but this time the queen wasn't in the box so I caught them and put em on a sheet and sure enough the virgin was there. Put her in a cage and into a new hive and they all marched in. 
Does tanging work? I think so, sometimes anyway. I've had them land a lot lower which I believe is due to tanging, but when they go back where they came from they probably didn't have the queen.
Try tanging!! You never know. I've never tanged them into a box but I'll keep trying.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Bees are completely deaf.
So I don't know IF and how this works.

This youtube video proves nothing.
Bees are just returning back to the hive - a regular thing if the queen got lost OR this was just a practice dry run. Not much about tanging.
If you want to prove tanging, than show how you land them onto the only standing low bush while there are large trees around. AND do it like 5-10 times in a row.


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## Gino45 (Apr 6, 2012)

GregV said:


> Bees are completely deaf.
> So I don't know IF and how this works.


Hadn't heard this. Bees at least sometimes 'hum' or is it 'buzz' as they go about their work, fwiw.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

GregV said:


> Bees are completely deaf.


This is not quite true. Bees have the Johnston's organ at the bend of their antennas which function as primitive ears, and a nerve cluster on the Tibia of their legs that can detect airborn vibration. Research has shown that operant conditioning to a sugar reward announced three different frequencies means bees can hear and discriminate between sounds.


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## davemal (Mar 6, 2015)

GregV said:


> Bees are completely deaf.
> So I don't know IF and how this works.
> 
> This youtube video proves nothing.
> ...


I am just sharing my experiences with tanging. Of the five swarms I caught in mid-air over the past several years and started tanging, all five returned to the hive entrance. Sharing info is all I can do. I am not trying to prove anything. Do what you want with the information. I have my metal bucket handy regardless.


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## ncbeez (Aug 25, 2015)

If bees couldn't hear or at least feel vibrations then why would a queen bother making a piping sound?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Gino45 said:


> Hadn't heard this. Bees at least sometimes 'hum' or is it 'buzz' as they go about their work, fwiw.


Humming or buzzing <> hearing.
Emmitting something does not equal being able to detect the same
:0)


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

JWChesnut said:


> This is not quite true.


No doubt they are able to detect the various vibrations (especially through the combs and hive walls). Conveniently these primitive "ears" are located in the legs.

Can they hear the vibrations through the air though?
Maybe then can similar to the grass-hoppers and crickets.

OK, here:


> The belief that bees were completely deaf was refuted by a series of experiments following the discovery that sound *signals are emitted by dancing bees.*..........








A Closer Look: Sound Generation and Hearing | Bee Culture







www.beeculture.com





Let us recall that the bees dance *on the combs.*
So what is the media that predominantly transports the vibrations?
Is it air OR is it the comb itself?
I say it is the comb that is the predominant transport by far.

In the article they keep talking of possible air transmission (though the distances involved are minuscule to be concerned with for any outside of the hive significance). 
But all of this takes place in the dancing bee context - which occurs directly on the combs.
Other experiments also take place directly in the feeder where the bees have physical contact with the substrate via their legs (so again - there is physical contact with the source of vibrations).

Well, all they had to do was to train the bees to come to some feeding station over a reasonably good distance (and with NO scent!) by tanging the metal next to the station and the bees would *fly* by the sound. Now that would be a great demo and no questions would be left then. LOL
Anyway, that is an "IMO".

I have a great cartoon where a bear character sets out a bunch of new hives for the bees and yells - "Here bees! Here bees!". Then a bunch of bees show up for the new hives. 
This is how I have this idea of just tanging the bees to a feeder.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

ncbeez said:


> If bees couldn't hear or at least feel vibrations then why would a queen bother making a piping sound?


So again - think of how the vibrations in the hive are distributed.

Vibration distributions via combs <> vibration distribution via air.
Vibration signals travel via some firm media stronger and faster than via air.
Bee don't need to hear the piping; the bees *feel *the piping even better.
See that?

Bats are superbly adapted to capture the air vibrations and you can tell how.
This is one example of sound detection.

And the opposite, the earth worms are stone deaf and have no hearing.
But yet they are very sensitive to the ground vibrations.
Ground vibrations <> sound.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

davemal said:


> I am just sharing my experiences with tanging


I have a suggestion.

Pre-tape your tanging.
Then, when you have a swarming situation, play that sound in a loop via some speakers.
Observe.

I have a hunch that the tanging may have to do with the iron pieces banging against each other NOT the sound itself.
If anything, the bees maybe more sensitive to electromagnetic phenomena even more than audio signals.
Kinda like talked about here:





If the hunch has some merit to it, the bees will ignore your pre-taped tanging.


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## davemal (Mar 6, 2015)

A couple years ago I had a crew doing some mulching. One fellow had a device with a 2-cycle gasoline engine that cut in the border and threw the resulting dirt back into the bed. I watched him work. But the closer he got to the bees, the more riled they became. He soon tightened the draw string around his hoodie so only his eyes and nose were exposed. I got him a veil. I experienced the same thing at times as I get closer with my 2-cycle weed trimmer. Something is rattling them. Vibrations? Noise? I do not know.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

davemal said:


> Something is rattling them. Vibrations? Noise? I do not know.


Every internal combustion engine depends on electro-magnets.
So the electro-magnetic emissions are there, just to make it clear (important or not - I don't know - but they exist).
This is along with the noise and, btw, those nasty smells of your mowing and trimming (especially the 2-cycle stinkers).
Why should the bees love the gasoline and burning oil vapors?


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## ncbeez (Aug 25, 2015)

Mine tolerate my mower to some extent but don't like a weed whacker at all. The one and only time I did tanging it seemed to help but realize only one time could have been a coincidence. I beat on a thin cookie sheet with a stick hard and rapidly like I wanted neighbors far away to hear it. I was able to get on the edge of that swarm when they started. Maybe they were sensitive enough to feel it. I don't know if I want to put the neighbor's through that again. They probably think I am crazy.


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## SGBF2021 (Feb 15, 2021)

So just curious, why does the queen make a piping sound?


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## Boondocks (Sep 16, 2020)

SGBF2021 said:


> So just curious, why does the queen make a piping sound?


Apparently the queens also toot and quack as well.




__





A Closer Look: Piping, Tooting, Quacking | Bee Culture







www.beeculture.com


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## ncbeez (Aug 25, 2015)

Sorry it took me a while to respond on queen piping. I could not remember all the reasons for the piping so I looked it up. Jason Chrisman on YouTube has a good video to watch, with a recording. I am sure there are others also. I was a beekeeper for years before I heard my first time. I was in the beeyard checking on hives and could hear the sound when I passed by the back of one of the hives. I didn't know what it was at the time. Within an hour that hive swarmed. I have heard it a few times when picking up queens at a bee supplier and recorded it once. It seemed like just a little higher pitch than Jason's but the same pattern. Could be the microphone differences.


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## garlorco (Jun 25, 2019)

So just my two sense here. When we are talking about either sounds or vibrations, we are simply parsing the same substance. Both are about frequency. Those frequencies can be felt via leg OR heard via an ear but all are frequencies.
As such it is irrelevant how it perceived (through leg or antenna) but whether it can be acquired by a bee. 
This I do not know. They have many secrets God has not chosen to reveal to us.
So to me, the jury is out but I am curious.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

"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.
(Translators Note: 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.")
"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, Unedited letters of Huber, Letter to Mrs. De Portes


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## 123989 (Jul 30, 2018)

All I can say is my grandfather did it and it worked for him. You can also see it here.


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## 123989 (Jul 30, 2018)

GregV said:


> Bees are completely deaf.
> So I don't know IF and how this works.
> 
> This youtube video proves nothing.
> ...


You would never believe it then either.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

fadder said:


> All I can say is my grandfather did it and it worked for him. You can also see it here.


To really prove it - you want tang by ANY irrelevant object and have the swarm fly in and settle on it.
What about tanging a swarm into a kitchen pot?
If I see that - I am sold.

To have bees fly into a super full of frames?
Why shouldn't they fly into a super full of nice-smelling frames?
No need to be tanging.
A drop of LGO is sufficient. No need for that crowbar.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

fadder said:


> You would never believe it then either.


Like I said - tang the bees into a clean kitchen pot and video that.
That would be awesome and hard to argue then.


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## G3farms (Jun 13, 2009)

I want to see that also!!


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## 123989 (Jul 30, 2018)

Well to be honest I don’t really care if anyone believes it or not. So folks can believe or not it’s not going to ruin my day. 😁


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## G3farms (Jun 13, 2009)

I think it works myself!

Fadder, have a great day!


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