Trap out set up goes like a dream!

[Newbeeneil]

I set up a trap out on the cavity wall of one of my lamdlards property today.
I blocked all the obvious additional exits with Varroa mesh or silicon. Then set up a thin box which sits over the entrance with a mesh cone on the front. On top I have a nuc box with an entrance just above the cone.
Bees can come out via the cone and find the entrance to the box when they return after foraging.
When I first put the trap up the returning bees flew around the box frantically but when I added brood from another hive they started fanning and all the foragers just marched into the nuc box.
Just got to leave it there for the next couple of months!

 

[Hachi]

How are you going to get the Q out Neil?

 

[Erichalfbee]

How are you going to get the Q out Neil?

You don’t

 

[Newbeeneil]

You don’t

Exactly, the object is to remove the bees from the nest with the stores and then seal it up. The queen will keep laying all the time she has food but since no foragers return, food stocks dwindle until, she starves as she is unlikely to come out.
The bees in the box will make their own queen from the brood I gave them.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Love it Neil!! You were thinking out of the box, but hopefully the bees end up inside the box... Brilliant!

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Nice.

 

[Murox]

Very nice job.

 

[Boston Bees]

Well done for giving this a try. Not something I have ever done. But wouldn't it be easier if the nuc box was directly over the hole, with the one-way-mesh sticking into the nuc box? That's how I have seen it done online. Perhaps trickier to make it bee-tight though ....

 

[pargyle]

Love it Neil!! You were thinking out of the box, but hopefully the bees end up inside the box... Brilliant!

It's a standard trap out method but not many people can be bothered as it's time consuming, needs the kit making and takes a couple of visits at least ... credit to Neil - I hope the people who live there appreciate his efforts and reward him appropiately.

Most of those I have come across with bees in difficult to get at places really don't understand what is involved, don't want to pay a market price for the service and want the bees gone overnight at no cost ... I usually explain but most of the time end up walking away. A number of them had already contacted pest control companies and either found the quote to be excessive or were told to contact a beekeeper ... as it would be cheaper and they would take the bees away ...

I'm happy to collect accessible swarms but anything that involves working at height or dismantling - not my bag I'm afraid.

 

[understanding_bees]

I set up a trap out on the cavity wall of one of my lamdlards property today.
I blocked all the obvious additional exits with Varroa mesh or silicon. Then set up a thin box which sits over the entrance with a mesh cone on the front. On top I have a nuc box with an entrance just above the cone.
Bees can come out via the cone and find the entrance to the box when they return after foraging.
When I first put the trap up the returning bees flew around the box frantically but when I added brood from another hive they started fanning and all the foragers just marched into the nuc box.
Just got to leave it there for the next couple of months!

You have put up a very neat trapout hive box on the wall of this house, but when I see how high it is above the ground, I wonder how easy (or difficult?) it may be to get it down to the ground.
I wonder what you, and others, think of my approach to this kind of situation. My approach has been to attach a pulley in a suitable way onto the structure (in this case, a house), and have the hive box suspended by a rope from the pulley, so that it will be easy at the appropriate time to lower the hive box to the ground. Of course it would be necessary to have the hive box suitably secured against the house in the meantime so that it cannot sway about while the bees are setting up their home.

 

[Boston Bees]

You have put up a very neat trapout hive box on the wall of this house, but when I see how high it is above the ground, I wonder how easy (or difficult?) it may be to get it down to the ground.
I wonder what you, and others, think of my approach to this kind of situation. My approach has been to attach a pulley in a suitable way onto the structure (in this case, a house), and have the hive box suspended by a rope from the pulley, so that it will be easy at the appropriate time to lower the hive box to the ground. Of course it would be necessary to have the hive box suitably secured against the house in the meantime so that it cannot sway about while the bees are setting up their home.

Photos please! Sounds interesting.

 

[Hachi]

You don’t

Ouch! Genuine Q

 

[Hachi]

Exactly, the object is to remove the bees from the nest with the stores and then seal it up. The queen will keep laying all the time she has food but since no foragers return, food stocks dwindle until, she starves as she is unlikely to come out.
The bees in the box will make their own queen from the brood I gave them.

Ah understood Neil. Most I've read on here doing this think the Q follows and thought you might have been trying the same. Let us know how long it takes etc.

 

[Newbeeneil]

Well done for giving this a try. Not something I have ever done. But wouldn't it be easier if the nuc box was directly over the hole, with the one-way-mesh sticking into the nuc box? That's how I have seen it done online. Perhaps trickier to make it bee-tight though ....

TBH, the system does have an internal one way "valve" in the middle of the horizontal part of the bracket the nuc box sits on but I was worried the bees might back up and look for other exits which could be indoors. (It's happened to these people before when rougue bees appear from the bedroom floorboards.) so I went for the simple option of the cone directly ahead of the bees as they exit the wall which seems to have worked. ( they may be using the internal entrance as well of course but I can't see.)

 

[Newbeeneil]

You have put up a very neat trapout hive box on the wall of this house, but when I see how high it is above the ground, I wonder how easy (or difficult?) it may be to get it down to the ground.
I wonder what you, and others, think of my approach to this kind of situation. My approach has been to attach a pulley in a suitable way onto the structure (in this case, a house), and have the hive box suspended by a rope from the pulley, so that it will be easy at the appropriate time to lower the hive box to the ground. Of course it would be necessary to have the hive box suitably secured against the house in the meantime so that it cannot sway about while the bees are setting up their home.

The box is a standard, floorless, 5 frame nuc so not too heavy to lift even when full. I will probably rob the box of bees over the next few months if it gets too big but when I come to remove it I'll just slide a floor between the box and the bracket then strap it up.
To lower it down I'll put the extension on the ladder to give me extra height which will allow me to take the weight below the ladder.

 

[Newbeeneil]

It's a standard trap out method but not many people can be bothered as it's time consuming, needs the kit making and takes a couple of visits at least ... credit to Neil - I hope the people who live there appreciate his efforts and reward him appropiately.

Most of those I have come across with bees in difficult to get at places really don't understand what is involved, don't want to pay a market price for the service and want the bees gone overnight at no cost ... I usually explain but most of the time end up walking away. A number of them had already contacted pest control companies and either found the quote to be excessive or were told to contact a beekeeper ... as it would be cheaper and they would take the bees away ...

I'm happy to collect accessible swarms but anything that involves working at height or dismantling - not my bag I'm afraid.

Since these are landlords and I visit weekly it's not a problem and they wanted them removed because the area below is a suntrap they used on summer evenings and he had been stung several times last year.
They contemplated getting an exterminator in but I said I'd remove them for the same price which they were much happier about.

 

[pargyle]

Since these are landlords and I visit weekly it's not a problem and they wanted them removed because the area below is a suntrap they used on summer evenings and he had been stung several times last year.
They contemplated getting an exterminator in but I said I'd remove them for the same price which they were much happier about.

Respect bro - Respect

(That's a new expression used on me by one of my [much younger] work colleagues yesterday ... I think they were in awe of something I showed them which they would never have done themselves but were capable of - highly appropriate in this case. Well done !)

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

[QUOTE="pargyle, post: 764258, member: 9418"
I think they were in awe of something I showed them which they would never have done themselves
[/QUOTE]
Stringing together a cohesive sentence?
Or tying your own shoelaces?

 

[pargyle]

[QUOTE="pargyle, post: 764258, member: 9418"
I think they were in awe of something I showed them which they would never have done themselves

Stringing together a cohesive sentence?
Or tying your own shoelaces?
[/QUOTE]
Both I think .... along with few powers of observation, a total lack of any ability to spell anything longer than four letters in their vocabulary, a lack of many words above four letters anyway, no use of punctuation in written communication and the only punctuation in speech is the frequent insertion of LIKE ..

I think I am getting old ....

 

[Erichalfbee]

Ouch! Genuine Q

Sorry....just in a hurry