Learned something new from trapout.

[BeeMaster2]

I have had a trapout set for almost a month. It was on the second floor balcony of a apartment. The tenant was great and she and her cat, Jackcat, watched the bees most of the time. She has had an severe life threatening allergic reaction to similar stings before and feared for her life from them but loved watching them.

I was planning to go over there last night around 7:30 PM and pick them up last night. They had stopped coming out of the bee escape. At 7:00 PM she called ma saying the entire patio had bees all over it, especially around the box and in the air. My wife and I grabbed bee vac equipment and headed right over. I had had the truck loaded with equipment but did not plan on needing a bee vac. Turns out the remainder of the bees up and moved out one hour before sunset and moved into the nuc box. 60 minutes after they started they were still slowly moving into the box. I suspect last night I had 2 queens in this box.
Tonight I will go into it and see what I have. I might use this hive to replace my observation hive that died this spring.
When I removed the board covering the hive entrance, there were no bees left in the old hive, even when I had a white light shining in it. In the future I will have to make sure that I keep the trap out on until no more bees come out for at least a day or so.
The last one that I did, I do not think that I waited long enough for the bees to swarm out.
Jim

[iddee]

Every day in a beekeeper's life is an education, even if he/she lives to be 100.   :-D

[BeeMaster2]

That is what makes this hobby so addictive.
Jim

[capt44]

I did several Trap outs last year and had one do the same thing except it was a tree.
I used an Owens Bee Vac and filled 2 cages about 1/2 full.
I figured it was when the queen and the rest of the bees moved out.
I have 9 Trap Outs going right now and going to set up 2 more tomorrow.
I'm in Central Arkansas.

[BeeMaster2]

Update.
I moved the nuc trap out tony house and put it in the apiary. My hives are at the farm. Only have three other nuc's here. I had just checked the two closes nuc's a couple of days ago. On Wednesday, I gave this nuc a full medium hive. The nuc was full. I did not see the queen but it did have a capped queen cell.
On Thursday, this hive had lots of bees outside of the hive. I opened the top,  STB, and it was full of bees on at least 8 frames.
I noticed that a nuc that was 10 ft away has no bees coming out. I opened it and it was empty. Still had a queried frame of brood and 2 frames of nectar/honey and a half of a frame of nectar. I moved them into the trap out hive.
That nuc absconded and moved into the trap out hive 10 ft away. I will give them a few days and see if it has a laying queen. The trap out should have had a queen, even though I did not see it and the nuc had a marked queen plus the queen cell. Time will tell.
Jim