A fellow beek from Poland read my swarm trapping book and built a trap. It caught bees, but under it. I’ve seen this happen before. I’m interested in seeing if we, as a beekeepers, can figure out the common denominator of why.
Has anyone else built a trap that caught bees under it? How large was your entrance hole? How large was the swarm? How big was the trap?
I’m looking to see if there is a trend. In his photo, and from his video I see a undersized hole and a huge swarm.
If anyone else has caught a underslung swarm, please comment below with the:
- How large was your entrance hole? (i.e. 1″ diameter)
- How large was the swarm? (ie. small/medium/big/huge/it-carried-off-the-trap)
- How big was the trap? (about 6 frame / 8-frame / 10-frame (langstroth)
thanks! Doing my part to save the world, as we all should.
Tags: bee swarms, swarm trap, underslung swarms
Hi Mcartney, I had a similar experience last year.
A beautiful swarm landed on my five framed dadant nuc but just wouldn’t go in. They stayed there for a whole day. Next morning I tried to brush them off in to the nuc, when they took to the air. I managed to catch them when they landed in a shrub about 5 minutes later. Amazing experience. I think queens rely on scout bees to check out possible new sites for colonisation! In my case I don’t think the queen liked what she found when she arrived on site. My fellow beekeepers report similar rare events with their swarm traps.
I will try and include a picture if I can’t I wil send it to another address of yours.
Hope it’s of some help in our understanding.