Thanks, Rob, for reminding us of this service for enhancing swarm notifications

[Gerald Przybylski]

Rob mentioned pushover.net last year, and mentioned there are others in this marketplace.  (we don't specifically endorse)

Some of us "techies" know where to look for, and how to turn-on the features that make our email notifiy us a bit faster.  
We may or may not need this service as well. see below

A service like pushover  bypasses that learning curve.   
It's best for users who are desperate for swarms, and have limited freedom to wait out and chase swarms.  
Retirees like me can wait for an opportunity; there will be hundreds of swarms this season. Eventually we'll get our share.
Members with no bees, and small time windows (non-working hours) benefit best from this kind of service. 

I think it's reasonably safe to say we pride our community on how our we gets swarms into the hands of members who are bee-less.
Sometimes it's by hand-me-down swarms passed on to the bee-less. 
Sometimes it's by not hopping on the swarm instantly because we already have some bees. We let the bee-less have a chance to make their claims. 

Another reminder: 
Please be receptive to letting other members tag along to learn swarm capturing techniques. 
(Keep in mind that the person who makes the claim gets the swarm, but can hand it off to someone else if they choose to) 

Perhaps we'll see you this coming Tuesday for the Swarm Catching program at the ACBA meeting 

Jerry

-- Siri apologizes 4 autocomplete errors...

On Mar 8, 2026, at 12:52 PM, Robert L Mathews <r...@tigertech.com> wrote:

 Hi folks! Apologies for the extra noise, but this is a great time for me to remind everyone of the new feature we added last year:

Getting instant swarm notifications on your phone!

See the bottom section of this page for details. It works: every time there's a new swarm, I get an instant notification on my phone, and even on my watch, like this:

<incoming-72B880C7-B87D-4FB8-9C5F-317FE3C76F4A.PNG>

(The app it requires is free for 30 days, then requires a one-time $4.99 payment if you use it longer than that. So you can try it out free.)

I mention this now because every year we get suggestions of switching to a system that involves contacting people by phone. Unfortunately, that isn't possible because of the extra time commitment it would require from our much-appreciated swarm hotline volunteers, but this lets you know about every swarm the instant it's posted. No more "I would've loved this swarm, but I wasn't at my email then".

Enjoy!

On Mar 7, 2026, at 6:43 PM, K O via swarm-list <swarm...@alamedabees.org> wrote:

Too bad, I was working bees about 4 blocks away! Can't cruise the internet and work the bees at the same time, but could've responded to a phone call.

-- 

Robert L Mathews

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Alameda County Beekeepers Association" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to the-alameda-county-beekeep...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/F87429AB-AD8A-4727-AD55-AE089968EFD1%40tigertech.com.