How To Get Free Bees - How To Catch Swarms - Catching Swarms in Bait Hives
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- Опубліковано 5 лип 2024
- How To Get Free Bees - How To Catch Swarms - Catching Swarms in Bait Hives
In this video I show you how to catch a swarm of bees in a bait hive.
I always leave bait hives dotted around my apiaries to catch my own swarms where I miss the swarm preparations signs but also to catch wild and feral swarms.
If you want to know how to catch swarms or how to prepare a bait hive to attract a swarm, this video has you covered.
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An excellent point raised by Richard Noel on twitter. Make sure you treat the black frames for wax moth damage. Great point and something I completely missed.
Actually I have found wax moth damaged frames without any resources left are perfect for swarm traps and when they move in they fix em, once they are damaged ,moths usually don't bother anymore.Dont get me wrong Richard is Sooooo sharp and possibly my favorite teacher for real
@@badassbees3680 Yes that's a good point. Its definitely easier if they are still in tact though :)
beautiful vid. calming nature. and great commentary. really liked this one watching during my td exams learning stuff.thx
My bird watching friend didn't believe me - he does now. For the last two years a nuc box on top of his wheely bin shelter has been found and occupied by a swarm. I put in a mixture of blank frames and frames of old wax. Faced it South.
I like your empty box underneath as my boxes may limit the size of swarm they attract.
In my apiaries I always make sure stacks of spare supers have one at the top with a hole in - lots of my old supers have holes and gaps in them anyway.
Any spare brood boxes I set up as any other hive - on blocks on a solid floor and entrance block. Some of those get filled.
I do try to make sure that I don't leave space where I don't wan't bees - half filled supers, roofs over empty supers etc. - if I do that's where the swarm will end up. Brood comb hanging down from a roof is annoying
I haven't put then on my garage yet - but I will this year.
Very true. Stacks of supers should always have a top entrance just in case. I've caught a good few in stacks of supers.
I also find the same spots tend to do well for some reason. One spot on top of a cottoneaster Bush catches one every year.
Great video I am a second year beekeeper here in West Virginia I just found your channel and subscribed to it thanks for sharing I appreciate it hope all is well over in the U.K.
Hi Mark. All is good. Thanks for subscribing :)
Agree with everything you say - and well-presented - except the mesh. I’ve caught plenty in polynucs with mesh floors. But I do put them onto flat roof, so not much room under the hive. The one time I put a polynuc in a tree, the swarm clustered under the hive because the queen was Tring to get into the hive from underneath.
Yes that's the issue. They don't recognise it as a mesh floor but rather a big hole in the bottom. I've found it's better to seal it up if going into a tree. On a flat roof it would be fine.
I found this very interesting. This year we caught eight swarms at the same tree (where our apiary is). We're gonna make two bait boxes and tie them to the tree. We've had two swarms arrive within an hour of each other - hence two boxes. How many boxes do you have out and roughly how many do you trap each year?
At what point do you inspect them to check if its swarm with an Queen ?
Well done on the details. I think you’re referring to Thomas Seeley on his wild hive cavity studies.
Ah yes. That's the one. I knew it was a well respected study. Thanks for the details
Black Mountain Honey I respect him a lot and have read most of his materials. He made beekeeping more interesting for me.
Hi Laurence, thank you for your videos they are a great source of information, tips and tricks. One thing came to mind when I watched this. Assuming everything goes well and you now have a swarm caught in your box 5 meters up, is it difficult to get them down? I think I may be making the mistake of thinking of the weight of a hive with fully laden frames but a bait hive and a caught swarm is probably very light.
Hi. Glad you like the video. You will need to catch them quickly before they start adding stores to the box or it can become heavy quite quickly. If weight will be an issue just place the nucs about 1-2m off the ground. They dont need to go super high :)
the question is dont you still need a queen to keep them there? do i need to go out and find out where they are coming from to get their queen or does the queen move in too
How do you know if a swarm has moved in ? Got bees going in and out all day !
Hi.
I've built swarm traps for my two "Out Apiaries," on local farms in 2021.
I control swarming usually by making splits and diligent weekly inspections adding space and knocking down queen cells. Although I'm pretty successful in minimising swarms, but my simple techniques tend to adversely effect my honey crop. Would you perhaps be interested in making a tutorial focusing on effective swarm management that doesn't entail increasing hive numbers?
Thank you.
Stuart
That's the holy grail! Splitting bees is easy. Maintaining numbers and getting a honey crop is the hard part. I will do a video next year. We find demaree the best swarm prevention method and because its vertical it doesnt impact on honey crop, in fact it can actually boost it.
Mainly for safety reasons I give the height thing a miss. I'm sure Seeley says something about 1m high being enough and south facing on to open ground. Your box configuration is good. Might try that with a couple of double box Paynes nucs this summer.
The height is from my own personal experience. The ones up in trees do tend to work better but I do think the difference between 1-4m is negligible. I've just added a new video to clarify this point as I've had loads of comments and questions about it. So, my advice will be the same now. 1m off the floor or more if you can manage. Yes, the configuration seems to work well and buys time when the swarms do land
@@BlackMountainHoney No I think you're right - the height does make a difference. For me it's a question of risk and reward. I get a fair few swarms just from bait hives on hive stands.
@@drumgerry Agreed. I have them sometime go into stacks of supers on the ground but I have no doubt, if there was a bait hive in a nearby tree, they would go for that instead. Safety must come first though :)
Good video,Tom Seeley did the study, Honey Bee Democracy ...great read..
Thanks for watching
I use 8 frame Langstrof. How do I set up the trap..... ie the number of boxes/frames?
@@stephendawes7016 one will work,two will also work. I use black comb in center and then foundationless..but swarms like empty space so you can leave a couple frames out in the center also..you don't have to, you can add frames ,no pollen or honey.Use what you have, that's all..
@@badassbees3680 So far the couple of swarms I have caught l have used a single Lang. To keep them interested I have put
@@stephendawes7016 I use a Layens..old faithful. But anything will work, Styrofoam cooler,5gallon bucket,copy paper box. .nucs. Bigger is better though or you miss alot .I imagine a long Lang would work really good too!Swarm Commander over lgo everytime. And evening shade is things I've learned over the years
Is swarming just a warm weather thing? I put a couple of swarm traps up a few days ago but it’s now gotten pretty cold, windy and wet up here in Cumbria. Cheers
Yeah very unlikely to swarm unless the conditions are correct. Doesnt need to be scorching but needs to set fair. Next warm spell you will have a good chance
Fingers crossed. Looks set to get warm again towards the end of next week
I’ve been getting a bit of interest from scout bees at my swarm traps...they’ve been hanging around for over a week now. I took a little clip of them scouting the traps out....there’s probs only up to about 5 bees at any one time - would you expect a lot more scouts if a swarm was going to arrive? It’s exciting to see the scouts but after a week I’m starting to think they’re just messing with me! Cheers
@@davidianoliver did you end up having any luck with those traps?
@@johnandjacquelinewarren9979 Yeah, six swarms arrived last year 👍
How far from the apiary? You said “in the apiary”. Not sure about this. I’d be inclined to put them a short distance away, but now I’m uncertain!
In the apiary or a short distance away. either is fine. I just like to keep the confined the apiary. I've witnessed swarms leave hives and settle less than 10m away on stacked supers. They will go where they can find somewhere suitable no matter how far away or how close
What about wax moth and that frames? Thank you
Yes. Need to keep an eye on them for WM or treat to avoid WM
@@BlackMountainHoney how do you threat it?
@@climb315 We have a product called Certan that's just been rereleased
@@BlackMountainHoney I believe you can also freeze the frames to kill off any wax moth (should kill all stages), right?
Man you move your arms a lot when talking,but you do talk sense thanks again
If you wanna see some serious arm movement, check out this video.
ua-cam.com/video/QGysRjoWuqE/v-deo.html
I will find a happy medium one day! :)