Sewer Swarm: A Trap Out on Lambert Street
- 1 day ago
- 17 min read
During Cornell’s virtual Master Beekeeper Graduate Spotlight, while a beekeeper explained the history of skep hives in England, I found myself thinking about a swarm hanging fifteen feet up in a maple tree at 19th and Shunk.
It was one of those warm, sunny mid-April evenings that, Philadelphia-style, follows a few days of sudden freezing. Swarming seems to have started about two weeks earlier than the year before. Conditions were perfect for a colony anxious to split.
By the time my presentation ended, the sun had set and I assumed the swarm would be gone by morning.
In 2024 I applied for and won a scholarship through the Bee Conservancy for the Cornell University Master Beekeeping program. After a final presentation on how honey bees communicate with sound/vibration, I completed the course in October 2025. It brought immense satisfaction and the sense that I had finally achieved enough stability in life to devote myself wholeheartedly to something beyond survival. So I was very excited and proud when the Dyce Lab at Cornell asked me months later to present at their inaugural virtual Master Beekeeper Graduate Spotlight on April 16, 2026.
After dusting off the PowerPoint slides and rehearsing for a few days, it was time to give the talk again. For the master beekeeping program, students had to limit their presentations to 15 minutes. I remember feeling rushed to cram it all in - skipping a slide or two - and 15 minutes felt like 30. This time the presentation passed in a blur, my mind drifting back to the swarm.
A beekeeper’s disposition as spring arrives is often preoccupied, distracted - a mix of anxiety and eagerness to check on the hives and plan swarm prevention so we don’t lose those precious queens that made it through the winter. I have a full time job completely unrelated to beekeeping but there isn’t a minute during the days of April and May when I’m not possessed by the pull of the honey bees, overly attentive to every particular shift in weather that might offer a congested colony a perfect opportunity to split in two and take flight. So having received the first swarm call of the season the previous night, I awoke on that work day with buzzing energy, a full agenda and half a mind to see if the bees were still bivouacked in that maple tree. I’m not inclined to wish my time away, but 5 pm couldn’t come soon enough. My plan was set - after this last meeting, make a bee-line for 19th and Shunk.
Lunchtime. Another swarm call - 2300 block of Lambert Street, less than a quarter of a mile from last night’s swarm. I had one more meeting to get through, and as soon as that was over, I decided, “It’s 5 pm somewhere.” I ran to my truck to get over to my apiary where I could grab my jacket and veil, a horsehair brush, and some equipment to capture any swarm I might find at one of these two locations.
There’s something that happens in a beekeeper’s circulatory system when responding to a swarm call - it’s an adrenaline-fueled race to clear a cloud of thousands of unhoused honey bees from a busy city block, a tight neighborhood of rowhomes, or a crowded outside dining space along a block of restaurants. I sped down Federal Street, cursing the trash truck blocking the intersection. A quick left on 10th Street, and…construction cones closed off the street. And so it was, my brain in sweet sympathetic disarray, eager not only to house this colony but to be the first beekeeper on site to claim it.
Jacket and veil - check. Brush - check. Boxes, covers and bottom boards - check. Next stop - 19th and Shunk…would last night’s swarm still be there? Slowly cruising down the block staring up at each tree, I didn’t see any swarms. A sense of relief in some way - I did my due diligence within the restraints of my daily demands. I thought, where might the tree swarm have gone in just one day?
A swarm will emerge from a hive and settle about 25 to 50 feet away, clustering on a surface and sending out scout bees to locate a new cavity to call home. Sometimes they find the perfect spot in a day, often the search takes longer. In South Philly, there are many hospitable habitats for a swarm of honey bees looking for a dry hollow space that is safe from predators and protected from the elements - a vacant rowhome with open windows, an open soffit of a dilapidated rooftop, a rusted barbecue grill in a neglected alley, the inside of an overturned trash can in an overgrown vacant lot.
Having accepted that the swarm, which likely issued from my apiary, just a half mile away, was gone, I followed up on the second call on Lambert Street. Swarm calls are often vague. Fortunately, these were received through an app called Swarmed and included photos. A clear photo confirms whether it is actually honey bees or a wasp’s nest. A honey bee swarm is either a cluster of bees still searching for a new cavity or a colony that has already taken up residence somewhere disagreeable to a city resident. Honey bees do not live in paper nests like wasps. Winnie the Pooh was, in fact, delusional. He kept sticking his paw into a wasp nest, not a bee hive, and wasps do not make honey.
The 2300 block of Lambert was a quaint, close-knit block of two-story homes with an uncharacteristically clean South Philly street. Another slow cruise, looking left, right, up and down for the reported swarm - and I didn’t see anything. I reached the end of the block where a few neighbors were gathered, and there it was…sandwiched between two large flower pots and blockaded by yellow caution tape…a loose, light stream of bees calmly flying out of the manhole cover.
Sometimes, inspiration alights when we least expect it. A new passion arises through a random encounter. I never once thought about honey bees before my wife took our family to the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild’s HoneyFest, and there I was - rushing to meet them at Wagner Free Institute in North Philly, in their beautiful backyard, surrounded by lush trees on a perfect spring day. A beekeeper named Suzanne was demonstrating a hive inspection and I was instantly taken by the aroma of honey and nectar, the scent of the woodenware and smoker, the gentle buzzing of the honey bees…in North Philly. That was the moment my life changed. I took a class with the Guild and read Beekeeping for Dummies and never looked back. Eleven years later, I’m still discovering wonders and learning in ways I never imagined. And so it was with this swarm on Lambert Street, this seemingly peaceful colony that had taken up residence in the sewer at the end of the block.
What I hadn’t immediately realized is that the story of the Sewer Swarm isn’t just about the bees living underground. It’s also about the humans living on the block. Unlike what might be expected, the neighbors were thrilled to welcome the bees on their block. The neighbors were as disparate a group of people as I could imagine.
Gary, who reported the swarm, is an art curator. Bill is an older man who lives with his adorable mother, Margaret. Ann lives alone with her terrier and her cat and is always sitting on her steps finishing a cigarette. Stacy is an energetic younger woman with a distinctly South Philly flair and wit. Caronne and his wife are a quiet middle-aged Latino couple. These are the characters of 2300 Lambert Street that welcomed me when I stepped out of my truck to investigate this Sewer Swarm.
Another thing that never crossed my mind - how to open a manhole cover. As the beekeeper attending to this swarm call, it was up to me to remove the bees so that life on Lambert Street could return to normal. The manhole cover was tarred over, with two small holes from where honey bees were gracefully exiting to forage. I wasn’t prepared to wrest it from the asphalt. While Gary had called the Philadelphia Water Department for assistance hours ago, they hadn’t yet arrived. Honey bees often put beekeepers in precarious situations - moments that require immediate problem solving, with multiple possible outcomes. There I was with a box and a brush standing by a stuck manhole cover. A stream of options filled my head - wait for the Water Department? Let another beekeeper handle this (after all, I had enough hives as it was and I had to get back to my day job before my colleagues realized I was off the grid)? Suspend a cotton ball into the hive soaked in Honey-Bee-Gone - a substance that repels honey bees - to force the bees out of the hive? No, there was a better idea and something I’ve never experimented with before, but this situation was absolutely right for a ‘trap out.’ And there my newfound education began.
I returned home and finished out my workday, concocting in the back of my mind a contraption that would serve as a trap out funnel. A trap out involves sealing off all but one exit and placing a funnel over the remaining opening so bees leaving the manhole are forced through it and cannot easily return. The funnel is made of mesh which confuses the bees - they can’t find their entrance - and returning foragers whose abdomens are swollen with nectar can’t easily bend themselves to fit into the funnel’s entrance. I’d set up a trap box nearby - a smaller hive box - where the excluded bees could take refuge. Once enough foragers were locked out of the sewer entrance and established themselves in the trap box, the hope was the queen would follow. The only problem I needed to solve was how to anchor the funnel to the sewer against rain or wind.
Five o’clock. Laptop slams shut. Time to move. I had an old plastic ice cream tub to serve as a base. A spare piece of window screen would form the funnel, duct taped around a hole cut into the plastic tub. I needed something more stable, so I grabbed four small scraps of pine from my basement and screwed them into a frame so the tub could sit securely over the opening. This wooden platform would then rest on the sewer, and the bees would pass through wood, through the tub and out the funnel, unable to return. A last-minute thought, spurred by adrenaline-fueled urgency: grab the plumber’s putty to seal the gap between the manhole cover and the wooden frame.
I headed back to 2300 Lambert Street to install my contraption and trap box. The neighbors seemed fascinated - and I felt clever for whipping it together so quickly. I noticed a small puddle by the manhole that wasn’t there a few hours ago - and it hadn’t rained. Gary told me a neighbor who had come by sprayed Raid into the manhole! I was stupefied. Spraying poison into a sewer? I wasn’t going to let this deter me, there was still a possibility the bees would survive, and some bees were still flying out of the manhole. This neighbor didn’t live on the block full time. This was an eye opening incident. If there had been a bee hive placed on almost any other block in South Philly, neighbors would be up in arms lamenting the loss of a parking space and the imminent dangers of a thousand stinging insects in close proximity to their front doors. But here on Lambert Street, the neighbors were livid at the idea of spraying “their bees.” Ann purports to have given the neighbor “the riot act.” This swarm had only taken up residence in the past few hours and already there was a sense of territorial protectiveness and concern but also…a fascinating form of entertainment? A healthy distraction from the otherwise mundane daily goings-on of Lambert Street? And something more - all those years of hearing that bees needed saving, suddenly taking shape on a South Philly block.
Wringing out the putty into a long rope, I squished it onto the manhole cover around one of the two entrances and placed the wooden frame and tub in place and clogged the other entrance with more putty. I set up a nearby trap box and added a few drops of swarm lure. Now I…wait? I’d read a trap out could take weeks. That made sense, there are likely thousands of bees under the manhole. The opening in the funnel was about the width of two drones (male honey bees). If the opening is too small, the bees would jam up, unable to exit, especially if any dead bees get stuck. If the opening is too wide, the bees have a better chance of re-entry. The narrow funnel limited the number of foragers leaving the sewer - in a few weeks, most of them will have left and taken up residence in the trap box.
I was compelled to tell the neighbors this process isn’t guaranteed and it could take a long time. They were on board, and we agreed that the Water Department would likely damage the colony. It was very likely that the bees were building comb on the underside of the cover - lifting it would destroy the comb and aggravate the bees. Then again, the Water Department never showed up. I imagine no one really wanted to take that call - “Thousands of bees under a manhole cover? No thanks.” My work was done for the time being and Gary texted me regular updates over the next couple of weeks - “So much activity in the funnel” or “Lots of bees going into the box - must be working!”
A few weeks passed and I had just ended a meeting when I received a call from an unknown number. Turns out 6ABC was at 2300 Lambert Street and wanted me to stop by for an interview. At this point I was convinced that after weeks of foragers leaving the funnel, the trap box would be populated. Having the news team call me over to the site was a divine intervention. When I arrived I noticed the pine wood had cracked - the bees were able to bypass the funnel. Nothing had been accomplished. At that point I realized this would be a journey full of education and new understanding. The wood wasn’t necessary - I could putty the plastic tub to the sewer. This was now Day One. And the interview? It was short but got a fair amount of attention and a flood of comments on social media concerning the unappetizing appeal of “sewer honey.” Now that the contraption was secured, I was certain the trap out was on a successful path.
It was only after that trip to Lambert Street that I really started to understand the process of a trap out. There was a lot more to it than trapping foragers out of the sewer. The queen typically lays 1,500 - 2,000 eggs daily. Sensing a lack of incoming resources, she will slow down egg laying. By unintentionally allowing the bees to re-enter the manhole for weeks, I had helped build a larger population than I was trapping out. A worker bee takes about three weeks to emerge. Over the next three weeks, the rest of the workers will emerge. With much less larvae to feed and keep warm, they’ll transition from nurse bees to foragers sooner and leave. Eventually, the queen becomes very lonely and, ideally, she follows her colony.
I returned a few days later. The putty was still in place, the tub tightly secured to the sewer and the funnel was full of exiting bees. It was a lovely day - sunny, warm and clear blue skies. The neighbors were sitting out on their stoops, as they do in South Philly, and were thrilled that the story of their bees was on the news. Ann had shared the story with family in Oregon and England because who would ever imagine there’s a thriving beehive under a sewer cover on her block? Margaret opened her door and waved through the storm window as if to hold me there until she came out. She didn’t have much to say - it seemed she was happy to have something unique and different occurring on the block. Once she stepped out, Margaret shut her front door to show me her new bee-themed door decoration - “They had a whole section of bee stuff at Hobby Lobby!” I shared about how trap outs work and also about how the queen mates with up to 20 drones. Stacy said, “Sounds like Ann!” Gary planted some colorful flowers in the pots on either side of the manhole cover. It felt so “South Philly” - neighbors outside together, chatting, sharing stories, looking out for one another. Who would have guessed that on this special little stretch of Lambert Street, the thing bringing everyone together would be an adopted honeybee hive.
To help the bees acclimate to the box more quickly, I had been thinking of placing the tip of the funnel inside the entrance of the trap box to coax the bees into it. I moved the box closer and rested the end of the funnel inside. A few days later, I visited my favorite sewer and observed the honey bees crawling up the side of the box and easily making their way back into the funnel. The lure of their queen was unavoidable. Then it occurred to me: from watching bees return to their hives at my apiary, I knew they don’t land gracefully. The landing board is instrumental - they bounce on impact when returning from flight, then crawl into the entrance. To correct this setback, I pulled the box away again. Now, as long as the putty held, the biological process would continue on its own timeline.
Gary texted me a video of bees in the funnel. In the background Caronne says, “Having bees on the block is a refreshing change from mice and roaches.” As long as the honey bees stayed outside they wouldn’t join the lowly ranks of other urban household pests, and the residents of Lambert Street would continue their support of rehousing this colony. There was one more trick to speed up the process.
I returned a few days later with a frame of eggs and larvae pulled from a healthy colony at my apiary. Brood pheromone and the instinct to feed and care for the emerging bees would surely attract the trapped out foragers.
Before honeybees become foragers and leave the hive, they maintain any number of jobs, not the least of which is the young nurse bee. Between 1-6 days old, nurse bees are integral to the development of a thriving colony - feeding young larvae, regulating temperatures in the hive, and attending to the queen, among other tasks. In the absence of nurse bees, foragers can revert to nurse duties.
Carefully lifting the outer cover of the box, where I presumed hundreds of bees had taken up residence, I was surprised to see only a handful of occupants. I inserted two brood frames and in a few days time, the foragers would provide plenty of resources.
Days passed. I imagined honey bees weighed down with pollen, abdomens swollen with nectar, returning to the trap box to feed the newly arrived brood. Throughout the week I found myself questioning my strong daily compulsion to visit this manhole cover in South Philly.
Friday afternoon at last - clear blue sky and temperatures in the seventies. Surely the trap box would be buzzing with activity. I eagerly loosened the ratchet strap around the double-deep trap box and, lifting the cover, was pleasantly surprised by the heft.
The bees had built comb above the brood frame, attaching it to the outer cover so that the frame hung tenuously suspended beneath it, weighed down with thousands of newly emerged honey bees, nurse bees and returning foragers. At some point since my last visit, they had selected several larvae for queen development - a few peanut-sized queen cells poked through the mass of bees on the side of the frame.
Unlike swarm cells - built on the bottoms of frames when a hive becomes congested - these were emergency cells formed from larvae between 12-36 hours old in the absence of queen pheromone. After all - the queen was still beneath the manhole cover.
Now, at last, a new, thriving colony was emerging.
Over the next two weeks, I showed considerable restraint - eager to check the colony’s progress but hesitant to disrupt their development. Besides, I needed to focus on my work, so I put the temptation to visit the sewer in the back of my mind.
Still, intrusive thoughts persisted. A new queen emerging in the trap box. Six days until she’s matured - her exoskeleton hardened, her pheromones developed, her reproductive organs fully formed. Now she was out on her mating flights.
It's Thursday. She's got to be laying eggs by now. Finally, Friday arrives, and it's time for a check-in.
When I showed up, Margaret was already at her front door as if she was expecting me. She even gave me a little hug. She was wearing a white shirt with pictures of honeybees and skep hives and was excited to show me the new decorations in her bay window - a ceramic skep hive, a plush honeybee, and a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. Across the street, Ann had placed a SAVE THE BEES placard in her window.
It was a sunny clear day, and for the past several weeks, around this time of afternoon, hundreds of foragers would be crawling through the funnel and into the world.
No bees were crawling in the funnel.
With the early setbacks I had, I predicted I’d be checking on this sewer until late July, but this trap out was progressing fast. I had borrowed a scope from a friend who does home inspections. Because the funnel was full of dead bees, I removed it from the plastic bin to empty it and stuck the scope into the sewer entrance. By rotating the scope around in the hole, I could get a 360 view - the smooth and surprisingly clean brick tunnel, then the metal ladder, and then, turning the scope a few more degrees…pure white fresh comb, suspended from the underside of the cover, and not a bee in sight. Comb in an established hive is brown, discolored by remnants of cocoons, propolis, and debris. Because the foragers were being trapped out shortly after the colony discovered their underground home, the comb in the sewer was still fresh. I placed some putty in the entrance to completely seal the sewer.
Opening the trap out box, I could see the size of the colony was a fraction of what it was two weeks ago. The few frames inside were completely filled with nectar and some capped honey, but no brood - eggs, larva, capped pupa. The queen cells were long gone. Worker bees recycle the waxy queen cells - they chew them down to cap brood cells, or in this case, honey. While for the past two weeks I had been imagining returning to frames full of eggs, seeing newly capped honey was no less rewarding. The honey was light and fresh with a subtle lemon flavor.
Most of what happens in beekeeping happens while the beekeeper's back is turned. There are often multiple possibilities to explain each outcome - a beekeeper is forced to assess a situation on the spot. So there I was, standing next to a sewer lid on a hot Friday afternoon - eyes still sore from staring at a computer screen all morning - pondering the mystery of the missing bees. The population in the trap box was overflowing just two weeks ago.
I suspect that, during the previous fourteen days, the colony in the trap box became honeybound. If I had the availability to do so, adding frames of comb would have provided more space for the new queen to lay eggs. Without this space, because all of the frames were full of nectar and honey, she was forced to abscond from the severely choked up trap box, taking with her a majority of the foraging force.
My goal was achieved - the trap out was complete. I was determined to make this conclusion as ceremonious as possible. This was after all a seven-week long adventure. I couldn’t just close up the box and haul it away. Besides, too many foragers were still out gathering their resources. I would have to wait until sunset or early morning to close up the box to ensure most of the colony was home. This bought me some time to bring the journey to its rightful conclusion.
I texted John Paul at 6ABC who, a couple weeks earlier, had stopped by to share the story of the sewer bees on the news. The story garnered some attention - I could tell because as soon as it aired, my website lit up with visitors. I asked if he wanted to stop by as I hauled the colony away, and I asked Gary to tell the neighbors.
When I returned the next morning at 7:30 am, the gang was out. Margaret was in her white bee shirt again, ready for her close up. Gary and Bill were standing by. Over the next hour, the camera man interviewed all of us, filmed me scoping out the sewer, opening the trap box and then hauling it into the truck. Other neighbors showed up and expressed their mixed feelings that while they were happy the bees were saved, they were sad to see them go, and happy to have the parking spot back again. I even gave John Paul a bottle of honey to taste live as if it were “sewer honey.” And when the buzz died down, and the camera man packed it up, we all said our farewells, the neighbors thanked me, Margaret gave me a little hug, and I drove the “sewer swarm” the final half mile to its forever home.
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