Swarm Trap June 5 2017

[@sharonriley948]

Hey Mike, I think your swarm capture videos are sooooo interesting. I live in the southern mountains of Pennsylvania. We had a bad winter and it was longer than normal. Since temps have warmed up it has often been Hotter than usual, and extremely rainy with showers and thunder storms sometimes daily for a week. I knew of several feral colonies in hollow trees or old buildings.Two were old country churches which had strong colonies in the sides for from 30 to 50 years, but they died out this winter. Mites, disease, starvation? Anyway I have had swarm traps out for the whole month of May but so far HAVEN'T SEEN ANY swarm. I wanted to increase my yard for almost free, Well we shall see how that goes. I hope you get a lot of swarms before it is too late to build the colonies for winter., and get to restock your sons place as well...... Rick

[@beecatcher6653]

Hi Rick I was very interested in your comment because we are seeing heavy losses in NE Ohio under similar weather conditions. And swarming is way down too. There were 18 swarms on my properety by this date last year . Many were from my hives. Some were of unknown origin. This year there have been none so far. Quite a striking difference. I was also watching a five year old bee tree that died this winter. Beekeepers in tihis area are puzzled by the heavy losses. Most of my losses were in April. Discouraging after getting them thru a tough winter. I have some very strong hives that had swarm cells, so I made some splits. Probably just delayed swarming. I am hoping that swarm season is just late this year and will begin soon.. I keep watching the swarm traps and hope to see a swarm soon. I hope you too have good luck catching swarms soon.soon. Thanks for watching my videos.

[@sharonriley948]

Hey Beecatcher, Another fun video of you catching another swarm......But I am wondering are all these swarms issuing from your apiary? I have had hives cast a swarm when I was too busy doing other things or failed to notice Queen cells when I hurried an inspection or failed to get back to do follow up in short order. But i can't help wondering, could you be inspecting your colonies and either preventing a lot of swarms by making some splits and putting your own capped queen cells into your split and have them where you want them. If there are more than you need you could offer them for sale as started nucleus colonies and make a few dollars to help with expenses. Where I live a nuc sells for at least $150. If you are satisfied this way, then I wouldn't deprive you of the joy of the capture. I truly do enjoy seeing it. Rick

[@Dstick1Spearfishing]

Very Cool Mike, thanks for posting these, been great!

[@beecatcher6653]

Hi Rick, Thanks for your great questions. Last year I documented a total of 39 swarms on our property. I kept good records. Here is my best guess on where they came from. I caught 24 of the 39. The other 15 flew in to the big blue sky and never came back. I caught 13 of 24 swarms in my traps. I collected 11 of 24 in trees or bushes. So, I believe about half of the swarms came from my hives. The others came from unknown locations. Splitting did not stop swarming for me. We made about 10 splits in mid April last year. It did not seem to slow down swarming. But I did end up with more hives. This year has been a lot different. There have been zero swarms here. Last year there were at least 10 by today's date. Bee losses in this area have been heavy. I would say 75 to 100%. I did better than that. I am helping my son rebuild his apiary because he lost all of his bees. We made several splits a couple of weeks ago. Have wait and see what happens. I am guessing there will not be as many swarms this year because the cold winter and rainy springtime weather has taken it's tool on bees. I have my traps hung out. I hope I will see some action soon. The traps work great if there are bees looking for a home in your area. I hope that answers some of you questions. Thank you for watching my videos.

[@MacLux4]

Great Video, I followed your instruction on how to build a swarm trap... waiting for the spring to place it in my backyard trees. Hope to have the same success. One minor change I made on your design was that I skinned the trap with tree bark. Looks sharp and since I'm not mass producing these I invested a bit of time on this one. Hope to start beekeeping by catching a swarm. Thank you for sharing