My Trap Out

[Coldwater]

I have been keen t try a trap out for a while. There are two different swarms in my mother-in-laws roof and one of them is conveniently placed next to a section of flat roof at good working height.
Their main entrance was under a small raised section of lead flashing next to the chimney piece so I had a go yesterday. Lots of gaffer tape over every potential alternative entrance I could see. I positioned a nice 14x12 8 frame bait hive with swarm lure and old comb right next to it (with a view to adding a frame or two of honey and a frame of eggs and brood in tomorrow) and attached my funnel.
To begin with it looked very good... A lot of confused returning bees and more foragers happily leaving their new funnel. After the first hour the amount of bees milling about made me feel smugly that I had cracked it. Some were even investigating the bait hive,
How naive! After an hour and a half they started finding new entrances 3 metres away from the original and all the bees disappeared inside. After using a while roll of gaffer tape I'm ready to concede they have beaten me...
Unless anyone has any better advice? Would adding a donation frame now help entice them in, or would the brood just chill and die before anything happened?

 

[Queens59]

Problem is, without her majesty the rest of the bees won't move - and she is safely in the wall...

 

[justme]

Queens is right as they have been in there a while, short or long I dont know. I was called to a swarm that had moved into a roof space shortly before. Was told no way into roof space so decided to try a tempting 'box' with a frame of new comb for queen and old comb for the bees. I put it on the adacent roof within 2' of the bees entrance. Had no idea if it would work, but easier than a trapout (which was next option), it was fairly high up. Next day I had a call, "bees are all up in the air, just like when they came in". I told them to keep fingers crossed that they were relocating to nuc box. When I got there they had and were happily flying in and out of said box. Simple job to pick them up at 10pm that night:.)

 

[Chris Luck]

"Tempting" them out my sweet means or foul can work in the first 48 hours following a swarms arrival.

After that it's well nigh impossible.

I can't understand where all this crap about trap outs or bleeding them out comes from. It must have started with people being confused by what actually happens as opposed to what they would like to think happens - I've even heard it from someone that is "trained" and teaches others.

All that happens, (providing you can block all other entrances), is that you get a lot of foragers in a box that will make a queen if you introduce fresh eggs, old queen and colony still have to be killed, (or left where they are with much reduced numbers and an interruption to their pollen flow etc.

However if you enjoy playing with insects.......

Chris

 

[psafloyd]

"Tempting" them out my sweet means or foul can work in the first 48 hours following a swarms arrival.

After that it's well nigh impossible.

I can't understand where all this crap about trap outs or bleeding them out comes from. It must have started with people being confused by what actually happens as opposed to what they would like to think happens - I've even heard it from someone that is "trained" and teaches others.

All that happens, (providing you can block all other entrances), is that you get a lot of foragers in a box that will make a queen if you introduce fresh eggs, old queen and colony still have to be killed, (or left where they are with much reduced numbers and an interruption to their pollen flow etc.

However if you enjoy playing with insects.......

Chris