What are my chances of success?

[Skyhook]

put yourself in his shoes would you like it!!!!!! if i found out someone did that to me there bait hives would be spread every where just not done to another beek full stop

What do you mean 'does that to me'? If Beeforest gets a colony in one of his bait hives it has already left his neighbours hive, hung up in a tree for maybe a day or two, researched the area, and gone to the bait hive because it's better than their next best choice.

If the neighbour a) does nothing to prevent swarming, and b) hasn't picked it up from the tree where it first landed, he's given up any claim to it, and should be grateful to Beeforest for preventing them from becoming a nuisance.

.

 

[countryman]

says it all when they quote I DIDNT TELL HIM MY DASTARDLY PLAN that spells sneaky in anyones book so why dont you just tell him or evan better just ask him if he minds politness goes a long way i know someone who lets some of his hives swarm instead of splitting and they go to the same tree every time so just gets the cherry picker out and retreives them

 

[oliver90owner]

mbc,

Is so

If you are so sure, justify your comment. Or you might just retract it, or you could do something else with it, because you are completely and utterly wrong.

Skyhook,

Tried measuring it?

Obviously not, or, if it has been measured the calculator must be wrong. Can't think of any other excuses.

 

[mbc]

Preferred volume at about 40 litres is actually rather smaller than a single Nat brood.

Not so.

mbc,

Is so

If you are so sure, justify your comment. Or you might just retract it, or you could do something else with it, because you are completely and utterly wrong.

Skyhook,

Tried measuring it?

Obviously not, or, if it has been measured the calculator must be wrong. Can't think of any other excuses.

I carefully blocked the bottom of a national brood box and proceeded to fill it with nearly 42 litres of water before it reached the rim.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Hive volumes.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16285

 

[mbc]

Is that why my socks are wet ?

 

[oliver90owner]

So the estrimates are from 35 to 42 which is about 40.

Perhaps there is another reason why mbc's socks are wet (in Australia, North and South America, etc)?

Yes, there will be a floor, but also top bars which amount to nearly 2 litres of wood (or more, if using wide ones), if one really wants to be picky and measure the rebates.

The poster was suggesting a rather different result (not slightly more or less) and suggested a nuc as a possible (better?) alternative. Yeah right, less than half the frames(? - I wouldn't expect 6 frame poly nucs to be used as a bait hive), so around 20l for the standard 5 frame issue.

I happen to be top bee space so floor space would amount to around 3 1/2 l and there is no addition for the coverboard, either.

So I stand by my 'not so'.

 

[Poly Hive]

As for success here is my score for last year.

In the apiary two arrived in on the ground national hives comprising floor, brood and roof. There are hives in allotments about a mile away.

At the house two arrived into five frame national nucs, and ignored the "official" national bait hive which has been successful the previous two years.

Which just goes to show that the height aspect much discussed is not necessarily important as all my "catches" were at ground level as near as makes no odds, say four inches...

Bees do nothing invariably. Good Luck

I should add that all these swarms chose poly....

PH

 

[Beeforest]

As for success here is my score for last year.

In the apiary two arrived in on the ground national hives comprising floor, brood and roof. There are hives in allotments about a mile away.

At the house two arrived into five frame national nucs, and ignored the "official" national bait hive which has been successful the previous two years.

Which just goes to show that the height aspect much discussed is not necessarily important as all my "catches" were at ground level as near as makes no odds, say four inches...

Bees do nothing invariably. Good Luck

I should add that all these swarms chose poly....

PH

Thanks, that's very interesting. I have a poly nuc , I thought that this may be too small but it looks like it might be worth putting out as a bait hive also.

 

[Poly Hive]

Sure is.

PH

 

[Into the lions den]

Thanks, that's very interesting. I have a poly nuc , I thought that this may be too small but it looks like it might be worth putting out as a bait hive also.

We have a very nice swarm that arrived here late last summer...........August..........while all our bees were away at the heather. It could have chosen a high up full hive size box had it wanted to, but no, it went way down our stack of ,by then empty of bees, Canadian nuc boxes (5 frame Lang size) to set up home. A west facing entrance in the middle of a stack, and had to go about 2 feet into the gap (about a 2" gap) between two pallets of these boxes to the entrance to the box they chose. Was interesting to see the balsam pollen laden bees landing on the outside of the pallet and running all that distance to the entrance of their choice in such a dark and gloomy spot.

Just goes to prove that there is no rule. Exceptions are everywhere and any experienced beekeeper can cite them. However, it is more LIKELY that the above 6 feet and old combs in a full hive will pull in a swarm than other combinations. Its just a percentages thing as in the end the bees will do as the bees will do and essentially they can be, to our way of thinking, stupid.

The prime swarm that tried to go into a failed Apidea one time, and sat there like a big pudding all over the top of it, while the queen laid up the three little combs would be a case in point.........there was an actual empty hive only about 20 metres away. Did not wait to se what happened to it, just shook it out into a proper hive, and it went on to do extremely well.

The swarm in the Canada box is, btw, doing very nicely this spring. Carrying loads of pollen and already expanding. Will be a powerful colony in a month or so from now. Another rule broken...........August swarm? A whole month later than 'not worth a fly'. It was a caste/cast (old argument) with a VQ btw.

Rather off topic, but only added in because the unit is in the same place as the swarm above, is another rule breaker tale. The second Canada box at home base is even more interesting, and prospering even more, as it was larger going into winter and is already wall to wall in the box haveing drawn a bar of foundation in the last week or two. It was our 'get rid of the loose bees from the piles of boxes for extracting' colony. It happens every year. You are working in the extractig room and when you open a pallet there are some bees in a box. You open it up and there is a queen with a couple of hundred (at most!) bees, drawn to her by her pheromenes. You stick the couple of combs they are between into a Canada box and set it outside in the corner of the yard out of the way. Every time there are some loose bees in a box, or buolding up in the extracting room we shake them out beside this unit. Thye detect the queen and run in. Last year we had only one such queen and so only the one 'scavenge box' (we call it that as it is used to scavenge the stray bees brought home with the honey crop), but in other years we have found more queens and had up to 5 such units. This box gets added to every time there are loose bees to shake out. They almost invariably survive. This years one is going to be a belter. That a dissolute and disparate bunch of bees of all racial types and an origin as the loose bees can form a unit that will survive the winter and go on to make a productive hive is a constant surprise to me.

 

[Beeforest]

Thanks for that fascinating and insightful relpy. It looks like I might have many a surprise from my first time swarm baiting.

 

[Into the lions den]

Thanks for that fascinating and insightful relpy. It looks like I might have many a surprise from my first time swarm baiting.

Thank you. However. please remember the comments about placing of bait hives near another persons bees. Without their express agreement it is, as suggested by one poster who got himself rather fried for saying so, bad manners in the extreme. Yes, have seen it done, and yes, seen people's bait hives smashed to matchwood by irate beekeepers who have spotted them.

 

[Beeforest]

Point taken and I have posted here that I will talk to my neighbour about my intentions.
However, if anyone comes onto my land and damages my property they would have to deal with the consequences. ( All within the law of course)

 

[Silly Bee]

Thank you. However. please remember the comments about placing of bait hives near another persons bees. Without their express agreement it is, as suggested by one poster who got himself rather fried for saying so, bad manners in the extreme.

Agreed, its plain bad manners.

 

[Winker]

Agreed, its plain bad manners.

Thank you. However. please remember the comments about placing of bait hives near another persons bees. Without their express agreement it is, as suggested by one poster who got himself rather fried for saying so, bad manners in the extreme. Yes, have seen it done, and yes, seen people's bait hives smashed to matchwood by irate beekeepers who have spotted them.

If the original owner of the swarm has not picked his swam up for a near by tree/post/what ever, before the said swarm has chosen to relocate. Then it matters not who places bait boxes and where they place them.

In this months news letter from our Association we have been told to place bait boxes where ever we can, to help cut down the number of swarm we are called out to attend each year.

Once there gone, there no longer yours!

 

[Poly Hive]

Translation for the non Perthshire people.

"A bar of" in other lingo is a frame of.

PH

 

[countryman]

beeforest all i am trying to do is express an opinion that most on here would probably agree with politeness goes a long way to try and entice his bees your way with a dastadley plan is not really game is it just speak to the guy he might not mind he might evan help but dont forget there will be scouts looking for places and that could trigger his to swarm before he could do anything to stop it and thankyou into the lions den

 

[Beeforest]

beeforest all i am trying to do is express an opinion that most on here would probably agree with politeness goes a long way to try and entice his bees your way with a dastadley plan is not really game is it just speak to the guy he might not mind he might evan help but dont forget there will be scouts looking for places and that could trigger his to swarm before he could do anything to stop it and thankyou into the lions den

Ok, point taken. I will speak to him. Shouldn't have mentioned it as a dastardly plan.

 

[countryman]

no