Too early for swarm traps?

[jeff33]

I've already had a very interesting reply, direct from the titled owner of the estate. It was written very succinctly and graciously, but turned down my request. Perhaps I should have egged the natural beekeeping argument more strongly as the owner is an admirer of the writings of Rudolph Steiner. Steiner appears to have had strong views against the practise (as in 1923) of keeping bees.

I have replied with equal grace, avoiding trying to do any direct persuasion and have pointed out that my own beekeeping gravitates towards a more natural approach than the conventional. I won't try to do any bee poaching, but still have several authorised locations in mind

At least it's more pleasant than the abrupt 'how much' response I had from a land owner when I approached him to put a few hives on the edge of one of his unused field.
I was so gob smacked by his rudeness and not even a hello or no thank-you that I proceeded to wind him up with some guess work on his how much without mentioning money.

 

[Do224]

It's a fascinating thing too watch. I put a bait hive up in the garden every year and watch a succession of events before a swarm arrives. Often the activity can become quite frenzied only for it all to stop, the swarm having decided to live elsewhere or the beekeeper, having discovered what was happening, doing something about it.
If a swarm does arrive, it's usually five or six days of increasing activity until there are hundreds of bees there. All of a sudden it stops as if a switch has been thrown and within minutes the swarm arrives. Lovely to see; never tire of it

I bet it’s fantastic to see the swarm arrive. Do you catch a swarm in your bait hive most years? What sort of location is it in?

 

[Amari]

Just noticed that a swarm has moved into the trap with the camera in I linked to earlier...

Maybe it was the music that tempted them to choose your box?

 

[Erichalfbee]

I bet it’s fantastic to see the swarm arrive. Do you catch a swarm in your bait hive most years? What sort of location is it in?

It never fails. Every year
It’s on the potting shed roof.
It’s a Payne’s 14x12 nuc with the feeder taken out, painted inside with propolis. There’s one old brood frame, and two starter strip wired frames

 

[Heather]

Wow, crazy weather , crazy bees. But a colony reported to me.- Sussex- 9 frames brood, drones galore, and swarm cells ripe.and... .already filled a super. Think my bees still in thermal undies!!!

 

[Curly green finger's]

I agree, watching scouts suss out a box is great but when the swarm turn up it's mind blowing when you first see it!

Aye like this.

It's a fascinating thing too watch. I put a bait hive up in the garden every year and watch a succession of events before a swarm arrives. Often the activity can become quite frenzied only for it all to stop, the swarm having decided to live elsewhere or the beekeeper, having discovered what was happening, doing something about it.
If a swarm does arrive, it's usually five or six days of increasing activity until there are hundreds of bees there. All of a sudden it stops as if a switch has been thrown and within minutes the swarm arrives. Lovely to see; never tire of it

Bait hive swarm
This was a swarm I watched leave a hive and land 30 metres away in a bait hive last year.

 

[Do224]

It never fails. Every year
It’s on the potting shed roof.
It’s a Payne’s 14x12 nuc with the feeder taken out, painted inside with propolis. There’s one old brood frame, and two starter strip wired frames View attachment 25427

No lemongrass oil? Interested to hear how different people bait and site their swarm traps

Does it get constant attention from scouts throughout say May, June, July?

 

[Erichalfbee]

No lemongrass oil? Interested to hear how different people bait and site their swarm traps

Does it get constant attention from scouts throughout say May, June, July?

No lemongrass. No.
The best attractant is old comb.
Not constant attention. Maybe a couple of false alarms. The numbers build up over a week then either a swarm arrives or they disappear

 

[pnkemp]

Welp that's my trap set up on my garage roof. Worked in under a week last May. This year there is an extra nuc body on it for space and a full set of foundation, plus one drawn frame plus the usual lemongrass lure. Fingers crossed.

 

[Apiarisnt]

https://www.theapiarist.org/no-competition-competition/

 

[Apiarisnt]

Close up of a swarm arriving in a baitbox up a tree



password: "Arrival"

For someone who gets vertigo with thick socks on, this was a bit of a challenge to film

 

[user 20297]

password: "Arrival"

Let me know if this works or not

...it works, thank-you.

 

[Do224]

Close up of a swarm arriving in a baitbox up a tree



password: "Arrival"

For someone who gets vertigo with thick socks on, this was a bit of a challenge to film

That’s great, is it recent or from a previous year?

I think I may have gone down the wrong route with my bait hives....I’ve put six of them up around the garden . Trouble is I’ve no other options for places to put them at the minute. Do you think I should take five down and just keep one? It is a biggish garden so they’re all about 15-20 metres away from each other...and they’re in different types of locations, two of them are about 12ft up in trees, two are at waist height down the side of buildings, one is on a stable roof and the last is at the bottom end of the paddock at about waist height

 

[Erichalfbee]

No leave them. Have you got old brood comb in each?

 

[Karsal]

Seen any drones flying yet?

Yes, lots of drones from one hive. Just inspected today and she's a drone laying queen!!

 

[drdrday]

Do you think I should take five down and just keep one?

Definitely worth keeping them all there this year. If you get any interest you'll know which location they prefer. I always put two bait hives out. One goes in the same spot that they seem to like every year, and the other in various trial spots - gives you an idea of what they prefer.
Maybe next year you can keep the best positions and move the others further afield.

 

[Boston Bees]

Do you think I should take five down and just keep one?

Interestingly, this is what the Apiarist blog just recommended. The idea being that if you have too many bait hives then you reduce the number of "voters" (scout bees) for each one. A bit like several small left-wing political parties going up against one big right-wing party in a first-past-the-post system (or vice versa) ......

I had never thought about it like this.

I am not entirely sure he is right though.

 

[user 20297]

I am not entirely sure he is right though.

The colony is continuously making collective decisions about food, water and weather conditions despite being confronted by a world of infinite choices. I think that it is taking an inappropriate anthropomorphic approach to suggest that bees will show hesitancy when being offered a multiplicity of near perfect new homes within a restricted location.

If the problem is that another swarm may hog the best nest if a specific swarm hesitates, so much the better; you get the one swarm and the other will dither less, once it has fewer choices.

 

[Do224]

No leave them. Have you got old brood comb in each?

Yes old black comb in each along with a couple of drops of lemongrass oil on some cotton wool.

From what I’m understanding the issue with too many bait hives within a small area is that I may be ‘splitting the vote’.

I suppose I’m thinking of it like this.......say I’ve got 120 scout bees at my six traps and (for arguments sake) let’s say they like each trap equally, so 20 bees like each trap. They’ll all fly back to their nest and tell the others and so each of my traps gets a ‘vote of 20’ (instead of one single trap getting a vote of 120). So....,then some other bees (let’s say there’s 50 of them) who have been scouting out a mediocre old tree trunk also fly back to the nest to tell the others that they like their tree trunk. Tree trunk wins with 50 votes as my traps only had 20 votes each....whereas if I only had one trap it would have had a vote of 120 and won.

Complete rubbish or plausible??

 

[Erichalfbee]

I suspect that given multiple equally choice abodes the only thing to happen would be that consensus would simply take longer