I met an interesting lady on the aeroplane today who told me that her mother kept bees on the Island of Jersey.
When the bees started to swarm, her mother used to tell all her children (she had eight!) to run into the garden with pots and pans and bash them as hard as they could and make as much noise as they could, so that the bees would settle and not fly away. Her mother would then gather the bees up and put them back in the hive. She said it really worked.
I said I was not sure if the bees would naturally go back into their old hive if they have swarmed….to which she said that maybe her mother put them in a new hive.
There is a technical word for this banging of pots and pans – which is called “Tanging” – a descrption of which is in Simon Buxton’s book – The Shamanic Way of the Bee.
I also found this older reference:
Above is a plate from a Dutch book showing tanging.
“In this late 17th-century engraving from a book printed in Amsterdam, a swarm can be seen coming out of one of the straw hives or ‘skeps’ in the middle of the picture. A beekeeper stands to the right and hits what looks like a metal pan or drum in a procedure known as ‘tanging’. Tanging would alert the neighbourhood that bees are swarming and its rhythmic sound would help coax the bees into the overturned hive in the foreground. This empty hive would also have been lined with honey in order to entice the bees to take up residence within it”
“Tanging was also a way for a beekeeper to alert other beekeepers that a claim was being made on a found swarm. Acquiring new bees by laying claim to a swarm was important, as it was routine at this time for beekeepers to asphyxiate their bees with fumes from burning sulphur in order to access the honeycomb safely.”
I am interested to know if any readers have heard of this ritual and any other reasons that beekeepers might do it.
Plate and text in quotation marks from: http://www.nls.uk/moir/tanging.html
Bee Lore 
I have a wonderful late 1800s platter, handpainted in France, which shows people tanging the bees into a skep. I wrote a blog for our club, the Quimper Club International, and would very much like to use your illustration of the man tanging bees which you had from an early book. https://beelore.com/2009/04/09/tanging/
We will use your website name and give you credit for it of course..and I would really appreciate it. Also, I would be happy to send you the photo of my Malicorne platter, as I think you will find it quite interesting. I was referred to you by John, of outdoorplace. Thank you for your very informative site.
Carelle,
Thanks so much for your post. I actually got the illustration from another site: http://www.nls.uk/moir/tanging.html – so if you want permission, then please also refer to this site as well. I would very much appreciate a copy of your photo showing the Malicorne plate – plus any stories you have about it. That would be great!
Tang the Bees to get them back in the hive!
Beelore
I heard about this from a person that tanged as a kid in Mexico. He told me it worked 90% of the time to keep the bees from going too far from the original hive. I’ve tried it out a number of times now, each time they head back into the hive after 10 -12 minutes of tanging. The question in my mind is…were they really going to swarm? They looked like it, they were in a frenzy at the hive and above the hive flying excitedly, then they calmed down. Three times last week I tanged them back in, but the 4th time I was busy. I’m thinking, “Let them swarm, I can’t chase them now.” After about 15 minutes they calmed down and went back in…the jury is still out.
Tanging has worked everytime for me. I usually can tell when they are going to swarm because they start buzzing like mad in their box. As soon as we see the swarm you stand right close to it and tang away. They will start to land and usually land LOWER -not 40 feet up a tree. So their accessible to capture -hurrah! More bees for me! 🙂
I have heard that at one point in America this was done because land owners would hear the beating of the pots and pans and not shoot at beekeepers going on their land to retreive the hive. Great blog you have! kybeeco.com Thanks!
Yes it works. I have seen my dad do this few times. And when the bees land on a tree he captures the queen and put them in new hive.
Although I dnt think making the bees go back into their old hive will work. A queen usually leave the hive when a new queen is born. Old queen moves to a new hive with some of her workers, letting the new queen rule the other workers at the old hive.
So you should try to place them in a new hive.
Thank you CkGirl. It is an intriguing side to swarm catching. I’ve not tried it myself, but welcome stories from those who have seen it!
Love and light,
Beelore
[…] Tanging the bees, or ringing two pieces of metal together, is meant to cause the bees to settle sooner, and may help drive awkward ones into a collection box (anecdotes disagree on this). […]
My aunt recalls her grandfather having bee hives and she said that when he heard a swarm coming he would go outside and start banging on pots and pans and the bees would come and land near by. They lived in Ary, Perry County, Kentucky. She was born in 1939.
My dad while working on a power House construction site watched a fellow iron worker bang a steel beam with a wrench and then put the swarm in a bucket when they landed near by. Am old commercial fisherman friend of mine told me that her once banged they side of his boat and was able to coax them to land on his rain coat in the boat. So, if I ever see a swarm in flight, I will definitely give it a try.
Tanging was originally done by bee masters to make the swarm bigger, increase the size of the swarm. Something that ordinary beekeepers could not do, if they tried one of two things would happen, the swarm would return to the hive and swarm again the following day, or the swarm would nit on a branch of a tree and continue with the swarming process. It was part of the bee master’s craft and an useful trick. Greetings from Wales.