Hive Set Up For Catching Honey Bee Swarms

In this video, I show how I set up hives and swarm traps to catch honey bee swarms in the spring. It's important to set swarm traps up in a few different locations to maximize success in catching swarms. The article about catching bees by Tom Seeley is called: "Bait hives for honey bees" and is available on the Cornell University Library website.

[@naturalwitchery]

I love the idea of storing unused boxes in my yard on top of hives! My garage is full of bee equipment ❤

[@experimentofme2161]

Don't stack them too high. This last winter, I had a wind storm blow over one of my stacks and some of my Styrofoam hive boxes broke when they hit the ground.

[@decaturridgebees8761]

Cool deal! Keep em coming!

[@karachipodcast9540]

Nice video, nice work!

[@seedsandarrowsfrontier9224]

#202, I just found your channel! Great video footage of the swarm!! Good luck this year!

[@experimentofme2161]

Thanks, yeah I've been lucky to catch a couple swarms on video.

[@bigdaddydoitall]

Great video. Bees breaking beekeeper rules is very true. I experimented with an enormous swarm trap all custom dimensions, handmade wired foundationless frames with starter strips and the swarm moved in while i was at work the next day. Interestingly enough, I had a 4" space below the frames. Needless to say, the bee are building like mad below the frame which has become a mess for inspections, but the bottom line is if the setting and conditions are right, they will come.

[@experimentofme2161]

Congrats on the swarm catch.

[@MrJimloveuk]

Thank you. Very useful.

[@tonyjetton8352]

I have learned to never say never about honey bees. I just, last week, had a swarm of bees take up residence in in a dead out that was stacked 6 boxes high and had been completely robbed out.

[@carybruton7284]

Great job bee brother. mine are set and ready here in upstate SC

[@experimentofme2161]

Nice. Seems like you could be getting swarms any day now. I still have another month and a half before I see swarms.

[@Astroponicist]

I would want to watch a live stream from inside of a swarm trap.

[@JOSIANGREENVLOGS]

Very informative.Expect more such videos I too publish videos on beekeeping.Also subscribed

[@experimentofme2161]

Thanks, I'll see what I can do.

[@MrJimloveuk]

Using swarm traps seems like an easie approach than finding and catching a swarm. Is this the case and do you have a video showing how to make a swam trap?

[@experimentofme2161]

Yeah, using swarm traps is a lot less work. No video of making a swarm trap yet, maybe later.

[@pirateprospecting707]

They need dark and space! Chicken dinner! ✅️😁👍

[@jameskemp1963]

Great video. Very informative. I like the design and construction of your hive bodies. Look a lot like the style hives my grandfather had when I was a kid, having the large recess along the sides for a handle. I haven’t seen these very often in recent years. Did you build these and if so, have you considered doing a hive construction video. I would certainly be interested and I’m sure others maybe as well. Anyway, nice work. Thank you! Liked and subscribed

[@experimentofme2161]

These hives are actually polystyrene hives made by BeeMax. I bought them from betterbee.com a few years ago. I used to have deeps and mediums, but I cut down the deeps down to be mediums, so I would only have one frame size to deal with. I highly recommend sticking with only one frame size and if you're going to do beekeeping long term, go with mediums.

[@gloriapischke175]

How far from your hives do you place swarm traps?

[@experimentofme2161]

10 to 30 feet(3 to 10 meters). But I'm not catching swarms from my hives. I'm catching swarms from other hives in the neighborhood. I've had hives swarm before and they do not move into the traps in my yard. I think 30 feet is not far away enough. I also put traps in other locations(miles away) around where I live.

[@Mehraj052]

Hi... Can we put some honey or sugar water as a bait in the empty box?

[@experimentofme2161]

In my experience, honey or other food for bees doesn't really help attract a swarm. Honey bees will find the food and start taking it back to their hive. It will create activity at your swarm trap, but usually not lead to a swarm moving in. I'd rather see bee activity at my swarm trap when there is no food, since that means that scouts are checking it out to see if they want to live there.

[@Hornsup18]

will bees move into a empty hive if baited? i plan on getting started without buying bees-only buying equipment

[@experimentofme2161]

In my experience, it helps a lot to have old comb, or propolis in your new hive so that it smells like a hive.

[@scotcompston]

These will most definitely move into something with undrawn comb. How else would they knew it into house siding or abandoned buildings or a tree hole

[@experimentofme2161]

Notice that I said bees won't move to a hive with only undrawn foundation. In my experience, they do not move into swarm traps with only frames of foundation. Foundationless frames or empty space is perfectly natural for them to move into, which I mention in the video.