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I read Tom Seeley’s books and listened to the lectures and he advocates the best hight for catching swarms is around 5mts, nothing to do with varroa. The box against the tree just confirms this.

A friend of mine puts one on a flat roof every year she catches a swarm or two.
 
drex said:
I run mainly Nationals and these get weekly inspections in season and two specific disease inspections a year.
I also run a Warre and TBH, which I mainly let do their own thing.
Am I an irresponsible " bee haver "?
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I have a pet colony on the common on there own in a 14x12 they have been there 3 years, no treatment or real intervention from me, am I a bee haver?
Some might say that bees can cope with varroa better being in a well insulated closed of hive or tree as Philip says.
Walking around woodland on the southshropshire hills I've counted half a dozen ferel colonys so far and noted them on a map, also near my apiarys I've caught 3 colonys so far that are from the trees or local wild stock yet to finish assessment.
Who knows how many there are around maybe in years to come I will get to walk all over if my feet don't give in and I don't get pxxxxx of opening gates.
 
Curly green finger's said:
Some might say that bees can cope with varroa better being in a well insulated closed of hive or tree as Philip says.
Click to expand...

Seeley's research (perhaps flawed, but it's all we really have) suggested that feral colonies in trees had high levels of varroa and coped with this by repeatedly swarming (thus conferring the benefit of a brood break, and allowing for the overall number of colonies to remain the same despite regular colony deaths due to varroa). Whether this counts as coping is of course another issue.

Certainly the tree colony near me used to throw out at least 3 swarms per year, based on what I collected from the adjacent hedge!

Sadly it finally died last summer after 4 or 5 years of existence. I saw last week that a new colony had moved in.
 
Boston Bees said:
Seeley's research (perhaps flawed, but it's all we really have) suggested that feral colonies in trees had high levels of varroa and coped with this by repeatedly swarming
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In the talk which he gave at the UBKA convention last year his talk on his return to the Arnot forest, he said the opposite:
all the surviving colonies had varroa - but low mite counts
Although the number of queen lineages was down to 3 from 23 in 1997 there was no loss of genetic diversity.
The 2011 bees were slightly smaller than the 1977 bees
The average cell size in these colonies was 5.2mm which tends to rubbish the 'small cell' zealot's claim it should be 4.9mm (but at least it affords Big T's a nice little earner catering to the gullible)
the colonies were smaller too with fewer brood cells.
But yes, they did swarm more.
 
Well yesterday bees poured out of the top hole and just funnelled into the bottom one. Perhaps they will try again another day or maybe it was a previously unseen wild bee behaviour phenomenon? 😉
 
Little_bees said:
What does Seeley say about keeping bees at 5m plus?
Apart from that they have as high levels of varroa as any other colony even if the tree they are 5m up in is in the middle of nowhere.
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I recall that Seeley reported that the colonies with a high varroa load did not survive. There were colonies in the area with a low varroa level, presumably because of the bees behaviour, that survived, flourished and re-populated the area.
 
OldFarm said:
I recall that Seeley reported that the colonies with a high varroa load did not survive. There were colonies in the area with a low varroa level, presumably because of the bees behaviour, that survived, flourished and re-populated the area.
Click to expand...
85% colony mortality between 1977 and 2011
 
Erichalfbee said:
Well yesterday bees poured out of the top hole and just funnelled into the bottom one. Perhaps they will try again another day or maybe it was a previously unseen wild bee behaviour phenomenon? 😉
Click to expand...
Ahh ... that will be the little known and rarely witnessed top entrance to bottom entrance practice swarm ... I have a device (very inexpensive and availlable by post) that will put a stop to that ...

cork.jpg
 
pargyle said:
Ahh ... that will be the little known and rarely witnessed top entrance to bottom entrance practice swarm ... I have a device (very inexpensive and availlable by post) that will put a stop to that ...

View attachment 27028
Click to expand...

I can think of a lot of places where that bung would be useful in beekeeping....mainly to be used on beekeepers.
 
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