Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: rober on August 28, 2013, 06:40:23 pm
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i just got a call for a trapout. i'd think that this late the bees would have a hard time building up once they were trapped. last year i talked 2 people into postponing til spring.
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I'm still doing trap outs but wind up merging them with another hive.
It is getting late.
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Trapouts now are only good for boosting other hives.
Capt., no need to merge. Just use the weak hive as the trap box. It works well without fighting.
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IMO it takes to much babying of the hive (my time) to be worthwhile. I also would give the hive about a generous 3% chance of overwintering.
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last year i talked 3 people into waiting til spring. 2 of those hives did not overwinter. the removal i just finished was in a split open tree. this was a large colony. they had no stores at all. i found absolutely no honey. we are having drought conditions here which is making the dearth even worse.i'll try talking them into waiting til spring.
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Excellent call. I would do the same in your shoes.
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As stated above, if you have a weak hive or nuc, you can use it for the catch box and fill it with bees quickly. It may give it the ability to overwinter where it would die otherwise. If you think the bees will perish anyway, I would try to boost my hives with them rather than let them die over winter.
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i'll check my hives & see if any need some help. when i checked my last trapout in a bdlg they had made queen cells & were bringing in lots of honey.that was 2 weeks ago. i'm leaving that trap until the hive is queen-right. i may winter them in a 2 story nuc. if they could use a boost i might trap this new call now. i also just got off the phone with the homeowner. she's agreeable with waiting til spring so now i guess it depends on the bees 'kneeds'.