Best ideas to keep late season swarm trap bees alive through winter.

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Bluenoser

New Bee
Joined
Mar 10, 2020
Messages
11
Reaction score
0
Location
Kanata, Ontario
Hive Type
Langstroth
Number of Hives
2
Went to take down a swarm trap today and was surprised by the presence of bees in it. They must have moved in within a week. What would be the best hope for survival or is there no hope. Swarm trap has two old brood frames and 3 empty foundation with beeswax painted on them.
 

Attachments

  • 17D372D9-5FAC-40E0-8CCF-5A227AB2BE8D.jpeg
    17D372D9-5FAC-40E0-8CCF-5A227AB2BE8D.jpeg
    4.8 MB · Views: 14
You can overwinter bees in a mating hive here in the UK
If you have another drawn comb and a nucleus hive you could put them on three frames dummied down with PIR and feed feed feed and maybe even a pollen patty on the top bars. Insulate the outside of the nuc with the same insulation. Be better if you had a poly nuc, of course. You can try. It's what I would do.......then we have the issue of whether the queen has got out to mate in the last week. .........
 
Thanks for the reply. How far do I have to move them to prevent them from returning to the same spot where the trap was?
 
Ok thanks. So if I want to move them 200 or so feet, I should take them at night, 3 miles or more away for 3 weeks, then I can put them anywhere after that. I will try doing that.
 
You do not necessarily have to move them at night. Certainly do not try it in the dark. Just make sure you shut them in first or last thing in the day, so that you take all the foragers, then move at an hour that suits you.
 
Bees only have a short term memory that lasts about three days, so you don't need to keep them away for 3 weeks.
Stick a fresh leafy branch right in front of the entrance at both new locations for a day and they will reorient quickly.
 
Another thing, if you're going to close them up all day and move them in the evening, make sure they have plenty of ventilation top and bottom. At least on the bottom.
 
Another thing, if you're going to close them up all day and move them in the evening, make sure they have plenty of ventilation top and bottom. At least on the bottom.
Thanks, I appreciate all the info. The swarm trap has one entrance and some vents holes at the top. I was planning on going back after dark or whenever they aren't flying around and staple a small patch of #8 hardware cloth over the entrance then move them to another location, then take the patch off for 3 days. After that, should I attempt to move them right away into a new hive? Or will they leave, once they are out of the swarm trap? Trap has 5 frames (2 x old brood, 3 x empty frames). If I could get them into a new hive, feeding them and preparing for winter, would be much easier, as I don't have a way of feeding them right now (need to build some kind of entrance feeder for the swarm trap or make a hole in the roof for a feeder pail or jar) and would be able to use a hive top feeder (4G) that I have.
 
Bees only have a short term memory that lasts about three days, so you don't need to keep them away for 3 weeks.
Yea, right. That's a new one on me - better put it safe in room 101 with the other tales
 
If I was doing it I would hive them where they are. Now. Close them up in the evening. Move them your three miles and open them up once they settled for half an hour.Bees do not have problems with short term memory loss. If you don’t move them away you will lose lots of bees which it sounds like you can’t afford to.
 
Yea, right. That's a new one on me - better put it safe in room 101 with the other tales


I don't appreciate being ridiculed.
While I don't have the knowledge or expertise of a Dave Cushman I do have some to share.

My dad was a beekeeper and a time study engineer so he enjoyed noticing and paying attention to small details. I am now 71, still a beekeeper, but not senile yet.
Just how large do you think a bee's brain is anyway?
Perhaps their brains are larger where you're at than here in the middle of the States.
I think the absolute minimum distance to move a hive would be two miles if you put an obstruction in front of the entrance as I stated before, preferably much more.
Because their brains are so small, when you place the obstruction and they reorient to the new location it overprints the previous memory. If you don't place the obstruction they'll be disoriented for a couple days but will settle down.
Because of their drastic long term memory deterioration one can easily move them away one weekend and back the next.

I realize I haven't contributed much to this forum since I joined, perhaps I need to a little less.

Good day
 
I think the absolute minimum distance to move a hive would be two miles if you put an obstruction in front of the entrance as I stated before, preferably much more.
Because their brains are so small, when you place the obstruction and they reorient to the new location it overprints the previous memory. If you don't place the obstruction they'll be disoriented for a couple days but will settle down.
Because of their drastic long term memory deterioration one can easily move them away one weekend and back the next.



Good day
It's not about long term memory it's about how the foragers who have been out already live for another three weeks. I watch my bees a lot....too much according to my husband. When there is a flow on those bees are straight out like a shot. No orientating before they go. I have underfloor entrances and they are in such a hurry they hit the bottom of the porch upside down and have to right themselves. If they are in familiar territory, they are straight to forage. On their return they go back to where they used to live. They won't in three weeks because they are dead.

At certain times of the year you can take the risk especially if a period of bad weather is going to keep the bees in for a good few days and in the winter of course it doesn't matter but the OP has a small colony he is intending to get through an imminent winter and he can't afford to lose a few hundred bees that get lost.
Why cut corners for the sake of a little extra effort?
 
Last edited:
Bees do not have problems with short term memory loss.

Healthy bees don't have problems with short term memory loss, they simply have short term memories.
Colonies suffering from CCD often have foraging bees forgetting how to get back home, much like humans suffering from Alzheimer's. That would be short term memory loss.
I think much of it can be attributed to agricultural pesticides, often watered down, relabeled and used on city flowers.
 
[QUOTE="Erichalfbee, post: 728956, When there is a flow on those bees are straight out like a shot. No orientating before they go.
[/QUOTE]

That's why I recommended putting the leafy branch in front of the entrance so they would reorient to the new location. Otherwise they may spend all day finding their way back to the hive instead of foraging.
 
You can overwinter bees in a mating hive here in the UK
If you have another drawn comb and a nucleus hive you could put them on three frames dummied down with PIR and feed feed feed and maybe even a pollen patty on the top bars. Insulate the outside of the nuc with the same insulation. Be better if you had a poly nuc, of course. You can try. It's what I would do.......then we have the issue of whether the queen has got out to mate in the last week. .........

I picked up a very small swarm a few days ago (in the last warm spell) I don't know where they came from, so had no idea weather the Queen was mated or not. As it was so small I did not think it would make it through the winter.
So I found the Queen and did for her and then amalgamated them with my weakest hive. using news paper.
Worked well
 

Latest posts

Back
Top