This apiary model shows the three background sensors UK beekeepers increasingly use alongside routine inspections — a continuous hive scale, an acoustic monitor, and a thermal camera — plus a bait hive positioned to recapture a swarm that does depart. None of these tools predicts swarming with certainty; they flag the physiological and behavioural changes that precede and follow it, so a beekeeper knows which hive deserves priority attention.
Scout bees will inspect several candidate cavities over two or three days before a whole swarm commits to one — which is why a bait hive left out from late April through June can recapture your own escaped swarms, and occasionally attract a feral colony's swarm as a bonus.
A 3D apiary combining a live hive scale, an acoustic buzz monitor, a thermal bearding overlay and a repositionable bait hive, all driven by a single timeline of the days before and after a swarm departs.
How weight, sound and heat signatures shift as a colony approaches swarming, then change abruptly the moment the swarm actually leaves — and how bait hive placement affects the odds of recapturing it.
Scrub the days-to-swarm slider to watch the scale, waveform and thermal bearding respond, toggle the thermal and acoustic overlays, reposition the bait hive, then press "Trigger swarm departure" to watch the cluster leave and fly to the bait hive.
A hive scale typically shows a sudden 1.5–3kg drop within minutes as a prime swarm departs — usually on a warm, still mid-morning — taking roughly half the colony's population with it.