nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

It is time to put swarm traps out

Apiarist

(Beginner beekeeper here, so take all info with a pinch of salt

)

Now is a great time to put swarm traps out. Colonies were building up in April, and the first week of May is going to be warm (16 degrees on Thu/Fri) which means better condition for forage and probably for swarming too. Last year I've caught a swarm using an empty hive on the top of my back garden shed, so now another hive is chancing its luck on the same place. I have already seen bees checking out the hive three weeks ago, but they were just robbing some leftover honey from the used comb in the hive. Still, it means that some bee colony is near and if they do decide to swarm, they may remember the path

The advantage of the trap over gathering a swarm is that if the bees arrived into the trap, they mean to stay there. Whereas a swarm on a tree branch somewhere still have not picked the place to go, and when you put the swarm into a hive, they may decide to leave for what they think is more suitable place.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

thelord

I have Three Nuc boxes all of them will be deployed for the month. I know a chap that caught eleven swarms last year but he did have 20 swarm traps placed.

I would be happy to get one swarm.

Good Luck All

Genghis Cant

Are there any rules of thumb for someone sticking out a couple?
Like location, distance from existing hives etc?

Apiarist

Genghis Cant wrote: »

Are there any rules of thumb for someone sticking out a couple?
Like location, distance from existing hives etc?

Here is a couple of good pages on the swarm trapping:
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/baithives.html
http://www.irishbeekeeping.ie/index.php/about-us/education/how-to-guides/tips-for-luring-swarms
From what I have read elsewhere, the distance may not matter much.

Adding a note regarding distance. The general rule for moving bees is less than 3 ft or more than 3 miles. So if your trap was selected by a swarm as a new home, either leave them where they are or move them to a distant location. Or can move them by 2-3 ft every few days to get where you want them.

thelord

No Sign of that 16 degree weather so fingers crossed for warmer temperatures. Placed my third swarm trap today might consider getting another together aswell.

How many are you going to put out Victor8600 ?

welsummer

No matter how good we are at swarm control, we all lose swarms from time to time. Each year a huge proportion of swarms are lost for ever because beekeepers have offered them nothing to take up residence in and they fly off to distance places. A bait hive is just an cavity positioned in an ideal location to entice a swarm to move in to. What we are trying to do is stack the odds in our favor by creating a attractive location with the most desirable conditions that bees want for setting up a new home. This will not encourage hives in the area to swarm but serves only to provide a convenient home for bees that has already decided to reproduce and split. Luring swarms with bait hives can be a way to get started in beekeeping. It isn’t the easiest way but can be worth the extra effort. Besides, if it works, who doesn't like free bees.
Location has everything to do with capturing a swarm that is looking for a new home and the essential part is putting the bait hive in the right place. Basically you want the hive at the flying height of foraging and scout bees with an entrance that has no flight obstruction and between 9 to 15 feet off the ground and if possible in full sun with the entrance facing south. This height naturally get them far enough up off the ground and away from most predators like badgers, rats and mice.
Safety First! 15 feet might be the most ideal height, but wherever the hives are placed they will need to be taken down. Working on a ladder 15 feet off the ground while wearing a bee suit and gloves and trying to balance a hive full of bees while trying to keep in contact with the ladder can be a nervous experience. There is no swarm worth getting injured over so place them as high as you can, while still being able to take it down safely. Placing your bait hive within arm’s reach will work just as good. Height does matter and placing a bait hive 9 to 15 feet off the ground produces the best results however you will get swarms that move into empty equipment sitting at ground level. Most of my bait hives are on flat roofs or low pitched sheds. Some beekeepers don’t manage their swarm control very well and every year there are hot spots for swarming and we get calls from concerned householders about scout bees that are checking out their air vents, cavities, attics, front canopies and sheds. A swarm might be a prize to a beekeeper but it’s a very intimidating pest to your neighbour. If we all had bait hives out then this would stop all this inconvenience to the general public. Once bees have swarmed and have flown away from a beekeepers apiary, then they are lost to that beekeeper and it’s a lot better for them to go into a bait hive than into the roof of a neighbour’s house.
Bait hive size : Size matters when it comes to choosing your bait hive. Hives will be sending out Scout bees (surveyors and architects) to check out all the local cavities for several weeks before they actually swarm. They are looking for a cavity that will be large enough to allow them to move into and then expand into a full size colony. A prime swarms preference is a cavity of about 40 litres (a little larger than a National brood box), well up off the ground, with a small entrance which can be easily defended. Entrance size should be small enough for the bees to defend and about 2 to 3 inches in length, near the bottom of the hive. Don’t have the entrance block removed your entrance wide open. For the second and subsequent swarms that are issued from the same colony, then a Nucleus size Box will do just fine. The problem is, if you do not offer them enough space then they may pass up your Swarm Box for another home. I have had scout bees intensely checking out a nuc box on my garden shed and then the activity ceases but started up again a week later and have a small swarm (cast) arrive soon after. This meant that the main or prime swarm with the old queen turned down the nuc because it was too small and went elsewhere but it was an acceptable size for the smaller secondary swarms or casts.
How many traps and what distance. Put out as many traps out as possible as it increases you chances and empty hives that are sitting idle in your shed won’t catch anything there. Get them out outside and put some old frames into them well before the swarming season. Swarms do not generally move very far from their parent colonies and the average distance is about ½ mile (800m). The waggle dance is a unique figure-eight dance of the honeybee and it is performed by workers so that they can give their colony, information about the direction and distance to best forage sources, or to new cavities in their area. Bees can’t give a precise signal for under a hundred meters and the dance will just convey that the location is just in the general area. I generally put one bait hive in my apiary and then place another out about 100 hundred meters or more away.
How many Frames should I place in my Swarm Box/Trap: If your bait hive is somewhere that is monitored regularly like the roof of your garden shed then space is everything. Place no more than 5 spaced out frames in a full hive or 3 frames in a nucleus Box. One central and one at each edge. All the time we are trying to give the scouts the illusion that there is enough space to grow. If it is in an out apiary and you will not be back for over a week then fill the bait hive with frames and then place an empty super underneath as this also give them the feeling that they have enough space that they can expand into and it prevents the swarm from filling out wild uneven comb in the empty space in-between the frames.
Swarm Trap Lures: You need to bait your traps effectively and the key is the attractant. Virtually every action taken by bees within and outside the colony is based upon pheromones, so swarming and bait hives are no different.
Used Hive Equipment: Bees have a distinct preference for pheromones and the more the better. To ensure that the scout bees pick your bait hive, you need to enhance the attention of scout bees. Without an attraction most swarms get away and until commercially produced pheromones became available the best things that bees were attracted to was pre used equipment and especially old combs. A used brood box or nucleus that has been well used is good as it has absorbs the smell of its previous tenants therefore making it an natural attractant. Old brood comb will produce good results, but be especially careful of the source of your old comb as it may introduce disease to a new colony and as soon as a swarm takes up residence than shake the bees off the old comb and replace with foundation. A drawn out empty honey super from the previous year can also be used over an empty brood box and in the absence of old comb, foundation has some attractiveness and is clearly better than nothing. I even use some of the waste left behind in my solar wax extractor. Use pre used solid floor and crown boards, in fact pre used everything. Do not use an open mesh floor but if you have nothing else then cover the mesh with cardboard or plywood.
Commercial Pheromone lures: Old equipment used in conjunction with another pheromones will greatly increases your odds. Most commercial lures attempt to copy the Queens pheromone which is somewhat of a Lemony fragrance and is an attractant to honeybee scout looking for a new home. These commercial swarm lures can be purchased from most bee supply companies and come in a small Plastic tube sealed inside a paper envelope which slowly releases their vapours. Google swarm lures and you will see what is available.
Lemon Grass Oil:
When setting out several traps commercial lures can get expensive and as time goes by the scents start to diminish. If your new to beekeeping and do not have access to old comb then another option that has good results is using Lemon Grass Oil which can be purchased at most health stores. When using Lemon Grass Oil only a small amount is needed as it is strongly scented and it can be refreshed from time to time. You only need a few drops per bait hive so a small bottle will last several years. Use a ear cleaning cotton Q Tip to dab the oil inside the hive. A drop inside the entrance and on the interior wood will make it more inviting and another couple of drops directly onto top of the frames. Three or four drops at the most and then place the q-tip at the back of the box and it can be repeated every couple of weeks. or 4 or 5 drops of lemon grass oil on a piece of paper towel, and put it in a Ziplock bag with several small holes on one side of the bag and place it on the floor of the trap, hole side up. The use of Lemon Grass Oil combined with Old Dark Comb is an extremely good attractant.

Scout bees and swarms arriving. Watching the bee activity at the entrance of a bait hive is a good indicator if there is swarming activity in the area and if the bait hive is positioned where it can be observed it can be very entertaining to watch the behaviour of scout bees and to know what is behind it. For weeks before a colony is going to swarm, scout bees will be checking out all the available cavities in the local area and this could be up to a dozen sites or more. Most of the scout bee activity at the bait hives will be between 11 and 5 in the day and the activity will diminish as the day gets later. At first there will only be a few bees and these are the first of the scout bees assessing their potential new home. They are the surveyors and architects and are measuring up before reporting back to the parent hive and the information is then transmitted to other bees in the form of a waggle dance. They will then start selecting and rejecting sites until they come to a decision on their final choice. This is done by gradually ignoring the scout bees that are preferring their waggle dance for a location that is not suitable, or by actually head butting the performing dancer to get her to stop. As swarming looms nearer in the parent hive, activity will be increasing at the entrance of your bait hive and sometimes you will see a forager with pollen on it legs checking out your bait hive on its way home. If the number of scout bees rises to about 50 at any one time, then your bait hive has made it to the final selection. You will often see scout bees getting over excited and actually giving a waggle dance on the front of the bait hive to other scout bees. When you see this level of activity, you can be fairly sure that a swarm is about to arrive in the next 24 hours. If you see a lot of activity at the entrance one day and none the following day, then your potential swarm has picked a more suitable home, or a beekeeper has just completed their swarm control. Sometimes you will observe competing scout bees from different hives, fighting at the entrance of the bait hive, meaning you could set up a second bait hive not too far away from the first. When the swarm arrives there will be tens of thousands of bees swirling around in the air and it can be an intimidating experience for non-beekeepers. From the time of a swarm arriving to all the bees having entered the bait hive is about 20 minutes or less and then everything goes back to been quiet again and if nobody was around they would know no difference. If you had not seen the swarm arrive and are unsure whether or not it is just a lot of scout bees, then watch for a steady stream of bees flying straight in and out and some with pollen on their legs. If you are keeping the bees in the same area then you will need to move them straight away. I have moved them within minutes of all the bees entering the bait hive, but the best time to move your bait hive is in the cool of the evening after the bees have stopped flying or first thing in the morning before they have started flying again.

Apiarist

thelord wrote: »

No Sign of that 16 degree weather so fingers crossed for warmer temperatures. Placed my third swarm trap today might consider getting another together aswell.

How many are you going to put out Victor8600 ?

Just 2 for now. I want to make some more though.

[Deleted User]

Here is a very good article on swarm traps (Bait Hives for Honey Bees by Thos Seeley).

https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/2653

thelord

Got my first Swarm of the year. I suspect the warm weather has them out and about.

Apiarist

thelord wrote: »

Got my first Swarm of the year. I suspect the warm weather has them out and about.

Nice! I had bees checking my trap nucs, but got no swarm yet. Did you collect a swarm or did the swarm chose one of your nucs set as traps?

thelord

The Swarm moved into one of the Nucs I had set out . I am very pleased to get one. I hope you have good luck aswsell its a positive sign if they are checking out the NUc you have set out.

[Deleted User]

I got one on Monday too, moved into a bait hive. Its quite a small swarm so likely a secondary with a virgin queen so have to wait and see if she mates successfully and starts laying.

lionelmessy

Hey there, beginner beekeeper just looking for some advice re a swarm I captured in a bait box about 10 days ago.
I had set up a box (a simple wooden box I tacked together myself) a little smaller than a brood box which I baited with lemongrass oil and one frame and foundation and sat on the branch of a tree about 7 feet from the ground.
I also baited my newly purchased hive which, going on activity, the bees also sussed out as a new home but of course they ultimately chose the box in the tree. :-) Perhaps the height was a factor - the hive is only about two feet from the ground.
When I first discovered the swarm in the box they seemed to have taken to the frame inside as they were all clustered on it in the evening time.
I thought it best to leave them for a week or so to "settle in" before moving them into the hive. However, I returned on Saturday last to find they had built up two or three sheets of wild comb in the box and, by the looks of things, have totally ignored my frame/foundation. So now I'm thinking I should have moved them to the hive much almost immediately!
I'm now wondering what to do with them. I ultimately want to transfer them into the hive but I'm unsure about what to do with the wild comb. Whatever about moving the actual bees, transferring the comb into the hive seems very tricky. I'm wondering if it possible to move the bees without the comb? Perhaps it's a matter of timing? Also, is there an easy way of transferring wild comb to a frame (I think I'm being optimistic here)?
If anyone has any ideas or advice, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Deleted User]

Ive not done this myself, but the usual way to deal with wild comb is to place it in an empty frame (without the foundation) and to hold it in place with an elastic band or similar. This can then be placed in a hive or if your bait box is the right size, simply returned to the box, which you can fill up with frames and foundation.

I think at this stage you would be asking for problems if you try to transfer the bees without their comb. and , of course remember the three foot rule.

Before you do anything I would lower the box from the tree, directly beneath it on a stand or something where you can work safely at it.

brianmc

lionelmessy wrote: »

Hey there, beginner beekeeper just looking for some advice re a swarm I captured in a bait box about 10 days ago.
I had set up a box (a simple wooden box I tacked together myself) a little smaller than a brood box which I baited with lemongrass oil and one frame and foundation and sat on the branch of a tree about 7 feet from the ground.
I also baited my newly purchased hive which, going on activity, the bees also sussed out as a new home but of course they ultimately chose the box in the tree. :-) Perhaps the height was a factor - the hive is only about two feet from the ground.
When I first discovered the swarm in the box they seemed to have taken to the frame inside as they were all clustered on it in the evening time.
I thought it best to leave them for a week or so to "settle in" before moving them into the hive. However, I returned on Saturday last to find they had built up two or three sheets of wild comb in the box and, by the looks of things, have totally ignored my frame/foundation. So now I'm thinking I should have moved them to the hive much almost immediately!
I'm now wondering what to do with them. I ultimately want to transfer them into the hive but I'm unsure about what to do with the wild comb. Whatever about moving the actual bees, transferring the comb into the hive seems very tricky. I'm wondering if it possible to move the bees without the comb? Perhaps it's a matter of timing? Also, is there an easy way of transferring wild comb to a frame (I think I'm being optimistic here)?
If anyone has any ideas or advice, it would be greatly appreciated.

Hmmm... after a week, I would be shy to try and relocate them without respecting the 3 feet/3 miles rule. That's likely the biggest complication. Have you somewhere else you can move them to for a few weeks?

As for the wild comb, while it seems a shame to lose it, a week's worth isn't a big loss really. I would simply knock the bees into the brood box of the hive and brush or shake the last few off the bits of wild comb. Then put the frames in gently.

I guess you could move the bait box to a new location and once they'd settled - even the next day - switch them to the hive. Have you a convenient way to close up the bait box while still giving good ventilation?

lionelmessy

Thanks DrDonkey and brianmc for the advice. Yes intend to move them +3 miles in the evening time before I move them back to hive as hive is quite close. I've an entrance about 4*1 inches which I can close up while moving; ventilation wouldn't be spectacular however - is the length of journey a factor here? Hoping for 15 mins travel time max.
On return then, I think I'll have a go at attaching the wild comb to frames.

daheff

question...do all your bees die over the winter? I assume not all....otherwise they would die out completely?

brianmc

lionelmessy wrote: »

Thanks DrDonkey and brianmc for the advice. Yes intend to move them +3 miles in the evening time before I move them back to hive as hive is quite close. I've an entrance about 4*1 inches which I can close up while moving; ventilation wouldn't be spectacular however - is the length of journey a factor here? Hoping for 15 mins travel time max.
On return then, I think I'll have a go at attaching the wild comb to frames.

Depending on the size of the swarm (although I suspect its small from your descriptions) 4" x 1" is really not enough ventilation for travelling. That said, a 15 minute journey isn't normally much to worry about. Don't forget that you've probably got some time at either end where they're still closed in and being moved about a bit.

As for the wild comb... I definitely wouldn't wait until they're returning to deal with it. They'll build a lot more in a few weeks and hopefully you'll have plenty of brood and some stores to deal with at that stage then too. You should try and get them on to frames in their hive ASAP.

By the way, we never get enough photos around here... (hint, hint)

brianmc

daheff wrote: »

question...do all your bees die over the winter? I assume not all....otherwise they would die out completely?

No. ...but some do.

Statistics about winter losses are a tricky thing to get a handle on. Just from memory, Ireland (in surveys) has in the past run at about 30% "winter losses" which is too much and hard to sustain.

During the summer, honeybee colonies will swarm (divide), increasing the number of colonies. Beekeepers try to manage this. Beekeepers also use that cycle to their advantage to intentionally increase their number of colonies, etc. In the autumn the activity of the hive declines and through the winter they are at their most vulnerable and some will inevitably die out.

In an example apiary - I had 6 viable colonies after the winter of 2016/2017. Right now, I have bees in 13 hives in that apiary, ranging from small to full and bursting with bees and honey. The smallest colonies - I'll give them another couple of weeks to see how they're getting on but I'm close to merging them back in to other colonies because I wouldn't be happy with their strength going into the winter. The strongest colonies are in good shape with a young queen laying well and pulling in plenty of honey. I'm confident that I'll be bringing them through the winter.

Hopefully all colonies will be strong with good, young, laying queens going into winter but inevitably late in the year I'll spot a couple of problems. At that stage it may or may not be too late to effectively deal with the problem. If it's too late - depending on what the problem is - I might decide to let the colony go through the winter and hope for the best or take the loss there and then. If the problem becomes apparent very late in the year, I won't see it before winter and I will be dealing with it in spring - either a dead colony or one in a hopeless situation.

Then there's the winter itself where a colony might be too small to carry on all the way through in the cold, or the colony could starve (not necessarily because you were careless about the amount of stores available) or the colony could succumb to disease while huddled indoors for several months.

Come springtime - it's not always easily apparent what the reason was for a colony dying out. Was it "due to the winter" or was the colony already compromised before that? They do their best to distinguish between these things when compiling the statistics but it's not easy. Often the beekeeper doesn't realise what exactly caused the loss.

Going back to my example apiary with 13 hives in it - I'll be as proactive as possible towards the winter to merge weaker colonies to strong ones to ensure as few losses over winter as I can. I'd expect to try and bring 8 or 9 colonies through the winter. Somebody else might try and bring all 13 through the winter.

I do what I do because I believe I'll have better overall success with, hopefully 8 or 9 stronger colonies alive and well in spring. I would expect the person with 13 colonies to end up in a similar or worse spot on average.

So... I'm hoping I'll lose maybe 1 out of 8 or 9. Somebody else is hoping to have 8 or 9 out of 13. That's 11% to 12% losses for me compared to 30% to 40% for someone else.

Again... from memory... I don't have a handy reference to back this up... I believe that in recent years, as the number of beekeepers has been on the increase (in the "western world" anyway), the number of honeybee colonies is also on the increase.

My understanding is that if people want to "save the bees", they need to understand that the decline in the diversity of bumble bee and other solitary bee species is where the biggest problem is at the moment and focus on that.

The honeybees (and beekeepers) will love you for it too though...

lionelmessy

brianmc wrote: »

lionelmessy wrote: »

Thanks DrDonkey and brianmc for the advice. Yes intend to move them +3 miles in the evening time before I move them back to hive as hive is quite close. I've an entrance about 4*1 inches which I can close up while moving; ventilation wouldn't be spectacular however - is the length of journey a factor here? Hoping for 15 mins travel time max.
On return then, I think I'll have a go at attaching the wild comb to frames.

Depending on the size of the swarm (although I suspect its small from your descriptions) 4" x 1" is really not enough ventilation for travelling. That said, a 15 minute journey isn't normally much to worry about. Don't forget that you've probably got some time at either end where they're still closed in and being moved about a bit.

As for the wild comb... I definitely wouldn't wait until they're returning to deal with it. They'll build a lot more in a few weeks and hopefully you'll have plenty of brood and some stores to deal with at that stage then too. You should try and get them on to frames in their hive ASAP.

By the way, we never get enough photos around here... (hint, hint)

Thanks brianmc. Hint taken, but tried to upload a pic of the bait box there and it didn't work. :-(

lionelmessy

PxCGxYbfK3UGbe4yJJTdZ5GVNXok2_-la3wTw41v5QDMhtpTIP6Ga8j83nMMmh2dHvey3byDBaO57vtYgSxj9aJR8HgXm3n4DuO8xit3D2U64tbaY6AkJ3-OP_IycWynrSqoGFnUD_hOuQ88gZ_7Djz8WBNzKmn9JO5lTG9nZ4mf1-qEm-TYH_5Pkn5zG0bv1BdH23h_SryumLq_rXU7EICw-wYeM2t7OuVCMRad0uSJ3CQTOxHucDVszkgzjG-NK2NIvTbL80i3c5dG9KWmr5_giaWEprukQAj2HB3F8F4GI-OA6HnwITelfirQD8aK5FOF3bgMYoXYqme6XrbwGkpy4WjP9qpPVH8YZcT55Z2ST23iuUbmrH4dPTlTPTFFjLFYKwfk4dv8dIYgRAh820tl6h50K1fFdkPSK6KJpiWu7PnckAmn0gZxA1r9V7oIy602x02fNBvwgBVMrN7fiwcRftbBzZWCRL6E8Rhc2HsCMct0BCwHFhGm0D9vWolYtUFKs9eE39-ZLShGopl3DpjwzjmJqKgBaZh3Q_eKnPBr2L3_hJrTccRZPcCIiaeiFE2zcD2ofN5oWzFvLmn9u-fPB5HhDuJLLsiqxfQM7b3OBYKdEBs-=w711-h948-no

brianmc

Nice! Let us know how you get on.

I wonder would it be easier to move them to the hive (or maybe a nuc box depending on size) at the current location and move them in that? For a 15 minute journey, an open mesh floor would be plenty of ventilation.

...so long as it's not completely blocked up when you place it in the car obviously. prop up one side a bit maybe...

lionelmessy

Didn't realise my pic attached above ^ Got a bit of a surprise when I saw it thinking it looked very familiar. :-)

So a friend and I moved the box last night to a forestry 3.5 miles away. I left it on a little bank in a small clearing out of sight of the forestry lane.

Hopefully it will be there when I come back and they'll be as active as they were all last week! I haven't seen them as busy to date but curiously they hadn't seemed to have built much extra comb. Perhaps, they had built some more sheets behind as opposed to extending the existing ones - can only really see the first three or four combs.

I moved them in the box they were in. I didn't open it up to take a look or transfer them to the hive for the move as I felt a little apprehensive about moving them in there before moving them back again into their permanent home. Logistically it would have been difficult for me and I felt more confident in adding comb to frames at their permanent base and not having to move it again - plus, as I said above, the comb didn't look to have extended by that much despite their industry and a friend with a little more beekeeping experience is unavailable for another week.

We started the move at 9.15pm and the whole operation took around 20 mins. I closed the entrance with the little piece of wood that you can see in the pic, which was just about beetight - you could see a few trying to get out. I thought we moved it very smoothly with no falls or jolts but they did seem to get fairly agitated - the hive was buzzing loudly! We didn't use any smoker as I thought rightly that we wouldn't need any for our own protection, though in hindsight I'm thinking maybe for the bees' protection we should have as it might have calmed them down a bit.

When we arrived I opened the entrance. I had read somewhere to leave it closed until morning but I wasn't going to be there this morning to reopen, plus I was conscious of ventilation. A few bees appeared out to have a look around but none took flight. I can only say that they looked disorientated compared to the jetting in and out that had been taking place before! After a couple of minutes, they went back in and the situation seemed to calm down in general as the intense buzzing coming from inside ceased.

Plan now is to bring them back on Thursday evening to my permanent hive site, leave the box there and on Sunday hopefully I'll have time and a little help to move them into the hive.

Thanks for all the advice. Any feedback or further suggestions would be great!

brianmc

lionelmessy wrote: »

We started the move at 9.15pm and the whole operation took around 20 mins. I closed the entrance with the little piece of wood that you can see in the pic, which was just about beetight - you could see a few trying to get out. I thought we moved it very smoothly with no falls or jolts but they did seem to get fairly agitated - the hive was buzzing loudly! We didn't use any smoker as I thought rightly that we wouldn't need any for our own protection, though in hindsight I'm thinking maybe for the bees' protection we should have as it might have calmed them down a bit.

Good stuff. A quick simple operation. I suspect your swarm is quite small and so it would have helped but ordinarily I'd be quite worried about the amount of ventilation you described. It's not just about oxygen but also about heat. The colony can generate a lot of heat when agitated to the point of killing bees.

The smoker wouldn't be of any benefit to the bees IMO. Handy to have one to hand though in case you trip and drop the box!

lionelmessy wrote: »

When we arrived I opened the entrance. I had read somewhere to leave it closed until morning but I wasn't going to be there this morning to reopen, plus I was conscious of ventilation. A few bees appeared out to have a look around but none took flight. I can only say that they looked disorientated compared to the jetting in and out that had been taking place before! After a couple of minutes, they went back in and the situation seemed to calm down in general as the intense buzzing coming from inside ceased.

If it's late in the evening, early in the morning or just a cool day a few minutes to settle before opening the entrance is usually plenty. If it's a warm day (flying temperatures) I'd leave them a little longer (an hour or two maybe).

lionelmessy wrote: »

Plan now is to bring them back on Thursday evening to my permanent hive site, leave the box there and on Sunday hopefully I'll have time and a little help to move them into the hive.

Thursday evening is too soon. I would wait at least a few weeks.

I moved a hive to a new location on 26th June. It was a swarm that arrived into a bait hive in an unworkable position on top of a hedge at home.

On Sunday (9th July) I discovered the swarm was quite small and the queen was missing and they were now laying workers so I brought the hive home and shook out the bees. They immediately all returned to the original location of the hive on top of the hedge. So... two weeks wasn't long enough.

lionelmessy wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice. Any feedback or further suggestions would be great!

You'll learn loads by getting stuck in. That said, you can't beat doing a beginners course with an association somewhere...

thelord

Captured a second swarm had not checked the box in about 10 days. Its a smaller swarm but the young queen has started to lay. put in extra frames and moved them to my main apairy.

Donalde

When bees swarm in the wild do they always move more than 3 miles from original hive?
To put it another way - If I catch a swarm and hive it in a new hive in the apiary from which it originated, will the bees all end up back in the original hive?

brianmc

Donalde wrote: »

When bees swarm in the wild do they always move more than 3 miles from original hive?
To put it another way - If I catch a swarm and hive it in a new hive in the apiary from which it originated, will the bees all end up back in the original hive?

No and no.

When the bees swarm, the swarming instinct causes them to look for a new home, near or far, usually a lot nearer than 3 miles though. For the first day or two after they settle somewhere, you can pretty much place them where you choose. Their instinct is to set about establishing the new colony.

Once they're in that spot for a few days then you have to treat them as you would an established colony.

thelord

Hello victor8600

Did you catch anything yet ?

lionelmessy

Hey brianmc, thanks again. Am booked in to do a course actually so looking forward to it!
Will take your advice on leaving them for a couple of weeks. Just went to check on them there and they are quite busy so all seems well from the outside at least.

Donalde

Thanks Brianmc

thelord

Would it be safe to say that the likelyhood of cataching swarms now is reduced ?