It was a beautiful spring day today with sunshine and temperatures hitting 71 degrees. It seemed like a perfect time for honeybees to start swarming, and I didn't want to miss it. I figured that I would get a swarm trap out. If one of our hives swarm, I want to catch them before they leave the property. If I catch a wild swarm, all the better.
I'll show you how we do it. We've caught three of our four hives in this same location. It's a "honey hole," one might say. The first thing you need is some old frames with some drawn out comb on it. These are some frames from the hive that we lost to wax moths. I had cleaned them up and now they are ready to use again.
I set a bottom board atop a ladder and stack a deep box on top of it. That's it. You can build a special swarm trap, but I've had success just using a regular box with a few frames of drawn comb inside. The ease comes about when you catch a swarm. At that point all you have to do is set the box on top of some cinder blocks and you're done.
The next thing you need is an attractant. You can use a product called Swarm Commander, but we simply us some Lemongrass Oil. It mimics the pheremone that the queen puts out.
I'll put a couple of drops of lemongrass oil on a cotton ball.
And I'll drop it in the very back of the bee box with the frames in it.
Then I put the cover on and use a ratchet strap to secure the swarm trap to the ladder. I don't want any winds to knock it down.
And now, we wait. Hopefully, scout bees will search and find the box and, like an open house at a realtor's showing, the bees will tour around and decide that this would be a good "fixer upper" and move in. We're hoping that's the case, and that they'll hang a "Home Sweet Home" sign out front. We'll keep you posted with our progress in catching a swarm.
Thanks for the step by step tutorial. I will do this tomorrow. I hope I can catch a couple of swarms this spring to replace the two I lost during the winter.
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