Bee Swarm Trap - FREE BEES : )
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- The swarm season is up and buzzing .. and we're out there casting our (pheromone) nets to sky : )
This was our first successful swarm trap ... so exciting !!
Normally when you catch a swarm, they're up in a eve or hanging from a branch, and they can leave before you get your equipment and haul out to shake them down .. but this is like mail order bees in the wild : )
Healthy bee colonies swarm every year (sometimes more than once per year) .. once the population has grown to a certain size (say, 50 - 60,000 bees) then the Queen will send out "scout" bees to look for a new location (this is where the trap comes in : )
We bait the box with lemongrass oil (which the scouts are attracted to) as well as an old frame of honey comb and other bee goodies then we set it up into a tree or on a roof, and when the scout comes back to the big Mother hive, she tells all about the new space, what it smells like, how big it is, and where, exactly, it's located ...
And then one day soon, all at once, tens of thousands of bees, lead by the Queen, take flight like a static cloud of buzzing and swarm to the new location.
Most times they end up in a wall or some other man made place where they're sprayed or sealed in to starve to death, but this kind of baited box saves them from all that : )
Here's a video that shows our experience with a nesting swarm .. they're up here in Flagstaff with us now !!
Doing great !
loVe,
p&j
***** We'll bee doing a blog soon to show how to make one of these. It's a great way to get your start at beekeeping, and swarms are normally very mellow : )
Or you can just set one up and then call your local bee-friends to come take them away (save the bees!!) .. you can seriously make one of these with a cardboard box and lemongrass oil : )
My bee's swarmed today. I managed to find the Queen thankfully, she is a beautiful queen and excellent layer this is my second yr having bees.
All going well in Ireland.
Don't know who's more awesome and beautiful: The bees or you guys! Ok: both. Very interesting and well done video!
well done, made it looks so easy too !!
You guys are awesome! I learned so much from just watching 2 of your videos. My wife and I just a had a swarm take up location in a shed on our property in the last 2 days. I would love to keep them and start keeping bees, but I am not sure where to start or what how much time it will take. We have room and property for them.
I can tell the guy got stung on his left hand! looks like mine when I get stung
very gentle
so just an old box with one frame? Surprised the bees were not on the frame. Looks to me that was a hold spot for hunter bees looking for a new home.
So when you put the swarm into a beehive it goes out of "swarm mode"?
Beez in tha trap
How long does the bee swarm stay in the trap?? Basically how often do I have to check it??
I feel itchy
Me too🐝
they looked aggressive in the tree :-)
The Sheffield Honey Company ha ha ha ... all our hives are feral bees, so aggressive has a whole different set of characteristics in my mind. They do seem to hate the camera, though .. maybe there's a frequency : ?
yeh, they hate my phone camera too - mind you its not all colonies, some simply dont care about electronics and yet others hate em - nice vid
besides lemongrrass oil and honey comb what can be used as a bait?
David Margvelashvili - Yeah, that's pretty much it .. they sell stuff too, One's called swarm commander I thing. If you ever pinch off queen cells or pop into a hive on hatching day and find a bunch of queens running around killing each other, you can soak them in ever clear 110 proof and make a queen spray .. I do that too.
pollenArts Thank you. Great videos by the way
+Charlie Kelley ....I would like to see & hear more about that procedure too, I'm not too clear on what the 110 proof is that he is talking about.
hi, do you paint the boxes to make them last longer?
+cutflower Yes : )
Happy
bhimlal sapkota fuxk u
How did I get here from nocopyrightsounds???
Do they always just cling to the top board ? Seems ideal if so.
They do : )
Sometimes they'll have a few frames of comb up there too, but it's easy to cut out and setup in the new hive.
hello. Is it okay for me the try build a beehive box using plywood?
old plywood might be ok, but new plywood has too much glue. Also, plywood doesn't hold up well in wet weather. You can get free wood off Craigslist, or talk to your local home-builder/contractors. They haul off their excess building materials, and may let you pick through the stack and take what you need.
Missy Rabbit thank you very much for responding
shayne caesar you're welcome. Hope you get many happy bees!
that is strange...
Are you in AZ? I really have had difficulty finding a mentor for my backyard beekeeping (brand new at it). Just for fun. Please contact me if interested in helping!
Meara Perrin have you contacted the Arizona Bee Keepers Association to find a bee keeper nearest to you? We are in Arizona at the Utah border and found a great mentor for feral bees by contacting AZ Bee Keepers and then Utah bee Keepers and called everyone on the list and found Stan and Alicia Moulton from the Honey company. They have a lot of great videos too though they are in Utah. The AZ bee keepers have a lot of materials on their website and also a forum.
Beehive inside the temperature is too high, will fly away
lol I've been killin bees my entire life