Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: FatherMichael on February 09, 2020, 07:11:46 pm
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I'll have four swarm traps ready for known locations of bees that might swarm this spring.
Dr. Seely says that having some drawn comb in the trap is very successful.
I belong to the Lubbock Area Beekeepers, which meets once a month. We trade, barter, and buy from each other.
I'd like 4 bait frames and wonder what to offer for them. I have frames with Rite-Cell foundation to trade (maybe two for one?) or can pay cash.
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I would give them away, I would never pay more than 2 dollars each for older black comb, which is what you want for swarm traps.
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$7 or less in my area.
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I just trade a new frame for an old drawn frame. I have done this several times.
Jim Altmiller
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You really don't need an entire frame for each trap. You only need the aroma. Just trade for one and cut it up. Save the pieces in the freezer for next year.
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Thanks, guys!
Was worried this might be another hit to the pocketbook.
The cost of getting back in is mounting. Need to start finding ways to recoup expenses.
Re-usable swarm traps will save money if I can catch some free bees. $250 a nuc is gagging me! LOL
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Father,
Use your hives for swarm traps.
Just put them about 6? off the ground. A deep with a small opening and a 7 or 9 empty frames, some lemon grass oil around the entrance makes a very good swarm trap.
Jim Altmiller
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Here is a stack of medium boxes that was next to my barn. I added 9 empty with waxed wood strips and one old drawn frame, a screen top that has a small opening and some lemon grass oil. The next day this swarmed in. 10 days later I opened it. The top 10 frames were full of brood and nectar in perfectly drawn frames. I had to do a cutout to put the bottom frames in the hive.
Jim Altmiller
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Jim they do not waste any time setting up their new home do they? This is a good example why some suggest filling our traps with foundation frames along with (old catch comb) when setting up a real catch box somewhere out in the country and as a person may not be able to check their traps for a week or two in between inspections. Thank you for posting.
Phillip
Amendment. Jim I apologize I was not very clear here. What my meaning was "with new foundation frames" along with one old catch comb. I am thinking I had already posted this in another topic while talking to knoc but I was not clear here, sorry.
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Phillip,
When scout bees are checking out your swarm trap, they measure out the space. If the box is full of foundation it blocks their measurements and looks too small. If you know a swarm is looking for a site, you can use drawn foundation. They will move in providing the box is large enough for the size of the swarm.
I only use all drawn drawn comb when I put a swarm in a box. If the swarm is really large I give them 2 boxes of drawn frames. They will fill the frames with nectar/honey.
I don?t put good drawn frames in traps because the wax moths often beat the bees to the box and destroy it.
Jim Altmiller
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Phillip,
When scout bees are checking out your swarm trap, they measure out the space. If the box is full of foundation it blocks their measurements and looks too small. If you know a swarm is looking for a site, you can use drawn foundation. They will move in providing the box is large enough for the size of the swarm.
I only use all drawn drawn comb when I put a swarm in a box. If the swarm is really large I give them 2 boxes of drawn frames. They will fill the frames with nectar/honey.
I don?t put good drawn frames in traps because the wax moths often beat the bees to the box and destroy it.
Jim Altmiller
That's another part of the beauty of keepings bees, there is more than one way to skin a cat. And the beauty of this forum just as this, you and I along with others sharing these different ways and ideas of skinning those cats. lol... I pretty much go along with most of that Jim. A large enough catch box should be used in order to make sure the bees like what they find. The reason I suggest one frame of old comb is for the benefit of the obvious attraction, the reason I suggest the other 9 frames being of new foundation is because of the concern of wax moths as you well pointed out. I have been told wax moths do not bother new foundation. If this is true, when the bees move in we will not have to be concerned with wild comb. We can rest assured that our well thought out placement of foundation in our other nine frames will be well drawn out by our new friends. Eliminating what we see here. I hope this helps. I plan on putting out both 10 frame catch boxes an 5 frame catch boxes. I have been told both are effective. I would think the 10 framer would up the odd of a catch by 100 percent over the 5 framer?
:happy:
Phillip
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X2 Jim, I only use 1 old dark drawn frame in 5 fr. nuc box. And 1 half frame and frame with starter strip.
But the #1 thing to understand is check box every 2 days , in swarm situations . in a box like Jim said bee's like room. So if u set up boxes , set up with half the frames and space them out. But I have to check every 2 day's. If not u will catch a swarm and have a mess. Get to them quickly and can be put into another box.
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Here is a stack of medium boxes that was next to my barn. I added 9 empty with waxed wood strips and one old drawn frame, a screen top that has a small opening and some lemon grass oil. The next day this swarmed in. 10 days later I opened it. The top 10 frames were full of brood and nectar in perfectly drawn frames. I had to do a cutout to put the bottom frames in the hive.
Jim Altmiller
WOW!
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One old black brood frame, the balance wax coated plastic foundation. No issues with wax moth other than the brood frame.
The local advice is to spray the outside of the box with LGO or swarm attracter to get the scouts to the box, they will go inside and check it out once they find the box.
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I know it it nice having the jump start with empty come, but I don't have any. I am assuming it will be attractive enough if I use empty, foundationless frames that the bees couldn't quite get to from last year. These unused frames still have propolis all down their edges, so bee smell is all over them, but moths will ignore them I supose
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Didn't get any practical responses from the club yet.
I've got a strong hive in the back yard so am now thinking of what it might contribute to the cause.
It is an 8 frame job with one deep and one medium that was completely full of bees and stores going into the winter.
I may have what I need, eh?
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I would use one or two mediums in a deep box,with the remainder being deep foundation. The medium [s[ would give them cluster space and they will add straight comb to the bottom to the depth of a deep.
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I would use one or two mediums in a deep box,with the remainder being deep foundation. The medium [s[ would give them cluster space and they will add straight comb to the bottom to the depth of a deep.
That would fit with what Jim said above.
I'll have to see what the donor hive has to offer in a couple of months.
Thanks!
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Are wasp a problem with occupying swarm traps?
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Are wasp a problem with occupying swarm traps?
The hive I have now was set out for two years as a swarm trap with no takers, not even wasps, before I put a nuc in it.
It was full of frames with foundation; so, no room for wasps, eh?
Plus, it was during the last of 5 years of drought.
We had a great spring last year and may be having another.
Looking forward to this season.
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Are wasp a problem with occupying swarm traps?
I just uploaded a 15 second video of a small swarm moving into a swarm trap and evicting the wasps. It?s freshly uploaded so the quality of the video may not be the best.
https://youtu.be/QdyH13SdEKU
I?ve removed mud dauber nests before also. I believe if the bees want the place they would quickly outnumber the wasps.
Kevin
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I'd like 4 bait frames and wonder what to offer for them.
FatherMichael, my first year someone gave me one old brood comb. I split it into 3 pieces and rubber banded them into 3 frames to put in my three traps. I filled the rest of the bait hive with foundationless frames.
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FatherMichael, I would look in your hive. You could go into the brood area, check for empty frames of drawn comb. Older, darker comb is more attractive, but it all smells like a hive. You only need a piece of it, but I save old frames and use one, on top and in the middle of my traps, along with frames of both wax sheets that I use as foundation, and/or wax strips as starters.
The reason the brood comb is attractive to the swarm is they will think this was a successful hive for a colony of bees before. The comb allows the queen to start laying immediately. I've seen beekeepers just chunk a piece of old brood comb in the bottom, but they'll just fasten that in there. It could be attached to the top bar of a frame (or top bar from a TBH) and the bees would build off that.
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Are wasp a problem with occupying swarm traps?
I have mostly Mudauber problems here ar the farm. I often find that if a mud dauber has moved into a swarm trap, the bees don?t use it. That being said, I have found mud dauber nests on frames with capped honey. The bees build around it and will not touch it. Even a plasticell frame with just the mud from a removed nest is not covered or cleaned up. They just stay away from it.
Jim Altmiller
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Thanks, guys, for the great feedback.
I thought that a fully drawn/used frame of comb in the baith hive would both attract a swarm and give them a head start.
The brood break helps the parent colony with mites.
But if the swarm started brood rearing right away ...
???
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FatherMichael, I can't help with Varroa. The problem here is attracting a swarm. They've stopped feeding her and stopped her laying to slim down for the flight anyhoo.
Dr. Tom Seeley has a lot of good science concerning swarms. From my experience, they don't worry about the trap being full of combs. The scouts will start looking when things are warm enough. I have had one swarm, though I would guess they absconded, on March 1st. We were still getting frost at that time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnnjY823e-w
They will start looking up and down all the branches of trees around, and will mark promising cavities. If you use Lemon Grass Oil, or the very expensive Swarm Commander, it will tell the scouts there is something interesting here. LGO has two compounds, Geraniol, and Citral, that are found in the Nasanov's gland. This is what bees mark food sources, interesting things, and you will see them fanning to send this scent when they want the rest of the colony to come home. These compounds say, "It's here!"
Using too much of this is as bad as not using it at all. But I've seen bees get all excited over a cotton pad saturated with the stuff, and hang out in the bait hives like they were going to swarm. Once they know the hive is there, you don't need to keep marking it as "here." You can tell, because there will be a half dozen bees that will hang around it for weeks at a time. They will go back to the colony and tell the other bees that there's "a really cool" place, come look at it. Then things will go into a contest the other workers will vote on. Every swarm trap isn't going to be accepted, even if everything is done right.
They don't like other bugs. I've had them hanging around, then come back a few days later to check, only to see the trap abandoned. Taking it down, I find ants have taken over, or wasps. They sure don't like a spider that's brown and has the same shape as a black widow here in the deep south. Sometimes I actually see black widows in the traps. I have yet to do any more testing, my hypothesis is the higher I hang the trap, the further from the usual range of these invaders they'll be.
For the ants, I make a bait of jelly, and borax, or peanut butter and borax. I am diabetic, so I take the needles off the spent syringes, and fill them with this stuff, the protein for the wood ants, the jelly for the others. 1/8 inch opening cut into the cap that they come with. It seems to work.
It takes a little practice to tell the difference between scout bees looking things over, and a swarm. I still get fooled. Scouts will fly out the entrance, circle around the outside of the trap, then go back in. A swarm moved in will have the bees go straight in and out.
I tend to go out to "tick country," looking for the toughest bees I can find. I can't say how successful I've been at getting them, because these "gansta" city bees have accosted my pretty wood bees, and kept me from getting things done for some years here.
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Thanks, Capn!
Haven't finished the video yet but was struck by the "most important" graph that Dr. Seely presented. The best home chosen by the swarm was not the one farthest away from the parent colony. Gives me hope for the known locations I have in mind.
It makes sense that the area covered by a finite number of scouts is greatly increased by the distance traveled. Closer X attractiveness > further X attractiveness, all else being equal?