The Spring season has just started here in Australia, and I would very much like to establish several more hives. Collecting bees which have swarmed would be a desirable approach for me, but I would like to be pro-active and invite bees into swarm traps. I have used keywords “traps”, and “swarms” to search the pages of this forum, but have not found much which is specific to my enquiry.
I have read Thomas Seeley’s book, “Honeybee Democracy”, about the size and type of space which bees seem to search for. What I am asking and hoping for is practical information from people who have successfully caught bees in swarm traps. I do not have old boxes which have the scent from previous colonies, but have built new boxes. I know about the use of pure lemon grass oil, and understand that old brood comb can help to attract bees. Does it have to be brood comb? or can it be any comb previously made by bees? How effective might it be to rub beeswax, or propolis, on the inside of the trap box?
There is another question, concerning the location where a trap might be placed. I live in a suburban location, where I know that some people have hives within 500 metres of my home. I have the impression that they are not “expert beekeepers”, and that they expect their bees to swarm. What I would like to do is provide swarm traps in locations which scout bees might find attractive. Should I locate a couple boxes at my home? or should I locate a box at the home of a friend who lives near to an existing hive?
We call them
Bait Hives so you could expand your search using that
Here's what works for me
I get swarms in these bait hives
every year.
If I replaced them I'm sure I would get more but I generally stick to just the two.
I live in a rural setting but there are quite a few apiaries within a radius mile of me.
Poly 8 frame 14x12 nuc box with a wooden solid floor and a 2.5cm entrance
Inside painted with propolis
One foundation free frame with a starter strip wired with fishing line pushed against the side wall, then an old brood frame, then another foundation free frame. The rest of the box empty.
As soon as a swarm is in I put another five frames of foundation in
No lemon grass, though I have in the past dotted a bit about the top frames. It's said that queens don't like lemon grass so I never put any at the entrance
One box sits on the potting shed roof about ten feet high. Swarms here are usually early and always seem to come from the same direction.
The other box is about 100 metres from my hives and sits at a similar height on a field shelter roof. The swarms I catch here are usually a little later than the garden box. They are never from my bees.
I let the bees live there till all the frames are drawn then they get moved on to big hives.
I use the same boxes every year and don't clean them
While bees will occupy any space, and there are reports here of bees arriving at stacks of empty boxes and supers in an apiary, they tend to bivouac close to where they emerge but tend to fly off further afield. This probably explains why I never catch mine but do catch others
