Trap-out or smash open cinder block wall?

[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

bee escape is a general term for any device that allows bees to escape from a location into another, and generally not able to return. They are also used to get bees out of honey supers before harvest. Some actually fit into the oval hole in inner covers.

The one I use in the trap is called, a plastic "conical" bee escape, and normally used for the same purpose. You place a board with the escape in it between the honey supers and the brood chambers and as bees exit the honey supers through the escape, they cannot come back into the honey supers. I have never known anyone who uses them, but someone must, because there are different designs available in the bee supply catalogs.

No, it is not a problem to move brood without nurse bees. ( in fact, I don't recommend it) I have done it hundreds of times, never had a problem. Of course you would not want to move it at low or cold temperatures, but you can run the heater in your car if you have to. The brood can also be out for at least a few hours. I have had it out for 2 1/2 - 3 hours, no problem.

Moving nurse bees would not be helpful. And possibly detrimental. The object of the frame of brood is to draw the queen and the nurse bees from the feral colony into your trap. When you set one up you will see how fast the nurse bees, fanners, cleaners, rush into the trap as soon as the brood is introduced.

Hope this is helpful.

cchoganjr

[Mr.Beeman]

3 for 3 on cone trap out with queen so far this year. Working on the 4th right now. I will know in a couple of weeks.
I do like the idea of making the bees enter the hive as Hogan explains. When I get a trap out that will support this method, I will surely try it.
The system is already built, waiting for the call.

[PatBeek]

3 for 3 on cone trap out with queen so far this year. Working on the 4th right now. I will know in a couple of weeks.
I do like the idea of making the bees enter the hive as Hogan explains. When I get a trap out that will support this method, I will surely try it.
The system is already built, waiting for the call.

Did you use brood/eggs or just old comb? In your original post I believe you said you just used comb and no brood/eggs.

grrrrrrrr......I should have tried that !!!!!

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[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

Mr Beeman...That is good to know. How are you getting the queen with the cone funnel? Are you getting her at the beginning or at the end, and are you putting brood in your bait trap. I used the cone funnel for years but never had any success at getting a queen. Do you have to make the exit/entrance on the cone larger.

I heard from Brent Claywell yesterday, and he said he always installs the screen cone funnel inside the trap, and he has gotten the queen on both of his trapouts this year, he is going to take one more start, then stop for the year. I had just never heard of this. He said she came through the screen cone no problem. Good to know. You can learn something new every day from this forum. He said he was going to post his results soon on the forum.

I haven't done an elimination trapping in the past several years, so I don't even use the conical funnel in the trap. I just don't have the time for elimination trapping. I just take starts, so I let them come and go. If you want to get the queen the main thing is to get them using the trap as a brood chamber, and not honey storage.

For all of you that I have sent photos of the Horse Cave Tree trap, bad news. Someone took the four frames of bees in the trap, and then sprayed the tree and killed all the bees. I suspect they also sprayed my trap Luther tore everything down a couple of days ago. I had taken a lot of starts from that tree. The trap had been in place for at least 5 years.

Thanks, Mr BeeMan. Your info is good to know.

cchoganjr

[Mr.Beeman]

Yes, screen cone funnel with a 1/2" opening. I can only surmise that the queen is one of the last to go. The nuc hive is placed beside the the cone funnel. The bees go back to their entrance and find the nuc. It does take a day or so for them to enter the nuc, but when they do the queen follows close behind, maybe a couple more days.
I didn't have any brood comb for these trap outs, but did have drawn comb with a little stores. All the trap outs but this last one (4th this spring) just "moved in" to their temporary home. I don't believe they had much but maybe some drawn comb. Then I trapped out.
This fourth one literally did swarm out after four days. They are now in a a two super hive. I will pick them up at night in three weeks.
I can't post pics here for some reason.

[PatBeek]

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Mr. Beeman, how do you have all this experience but you don't have any brood/eggs laying around for these trap-outs? Is it just that you don't have any other hives strong enough at the moment?

So do you actually PREFER doing it without brood/eggs, or has that just been your situation when you did all of these trap-outs?

Cleo, that's HORRIBLE that someone sprayed those bees. Who has access to that property to where something like that could happen? Could they have possibly been an irritant for a nearby neighbor? Was it just vandals?

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[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

As you could tell from the photos, the trap was right on the edge of a minor blacktop road. Been there 5 years, no one ever bothered it. There is a house about 65 yards down a dirt access road, and it appears that someone may have moved in it. Luther, (MY trapping buddy) talked to a neighbor and he said the bees swarmed onto the side of the tree above the trap. He said somone came by and got the bees off the tree, but he did not see him open the trap or do anything else. I knew the trap was full, I just had waited to go get them. When I did, my frames were gone, and there was not a single bee left in the tree. Had to be sprayed. Maybe the people who are moving into the house had it done. I don't know. It is about 15 miles up there and I haven't caught them at home, if they have finished moving in. Oh well, I had 5 good years, got about 15 starts, and lots of fun with them.

Mr BeeMan. With a 1/2 inch opening, do you have any problems with bees going back into the cone, and then back to the colony.

cchoganjr

[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

HC Trap 1.jpg

Here is the photo of the tree in 2011. Notice the road to the right, and a major factory in the distance.

cchoganjr

[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

Horse Cave Trap 2012.jpg

This is what the trap looked like about the first of June. I had gone to Southern States to get some Soy Beans, and I wasn't prepared to move them. I should have. When I went back a week or so ago, frames were gone, and the bees in the tree were all gone.

I believe they sprayed through the transition from the trap back into the tree. We took down the trap, and I am not going to use the transition again. I will just build another one.

cchoganjr

[Mr.Beeman]

Pat,
I have only two hives started this spring... one Lang and one TBH. I wanted to see which style I liked best.
I'd prefer to use eggs and brood IF I had them when performing a trap out. Just didn't have any early this spring, but did have drawn comb from an early swarm. I figured it was better than an empty box. I am an ADC (animal damage control) trapper as well as a residential/commercial builder. Trapping out bees is just part of the ADC work as well. Been doing it for a few years! lol

Cleo,
My cones are typically much longer than normal. Probably around the 16-18" area. While they look really wierd, it gets the job done. To be honest, I've never seen one go back in. My best guess is that the bees have their access point down to mere inches and all the smells they know are emitting from the same location through the screen. I wish I could post pics!!!!!! My daughter couldn't even figure out why I can't. lol Send me an e mail if you would and I'd be more than happy to send some.

[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

Mr.Beeman...My experience with the screen cone funnel has been that the entrance had to be down to about the size of a pencil, (perhaps just a smig larger) and fray the ends of the screen, to keep them from going back in. Large drones, and the queen, likely cannot come through it, but it keeps them from going back into the original source. If I set up another one I might try a larger entrance and see what happens. I posted that I received a call from Brent Claywell, and he said the queen had come through his cone inside the trap on both his trapouts this year. I did not ask how large his opening is. If I talk with him again, I will ask.

I have wished a thousand times that I had taken a photo of a trapout 5 or 6 years ago, where the bees had formed a chain, from the bottom of the tunnel, to the bottom of the trap, and bees were climbing this chain and going back through the little conical bee escape I put in my traps back into the tunnel and then back into the tree. I had left the trap in place for a few weeks, and they had found a way to defeat it. The entrance into the funnel is too small for them to fly into, and the plastic is slick, (I normally coat it with cooking oil also) and they cannot land on it and crawl back into the tunnel. But, they formed a chain and simply climbed back up into the funnel, then back to the tree. Oh the joys of trapping. I just don't have the time nowadays, and gas is so expensive for multiple trips if the trap is very many miles away.

cchoganjr

[Mr.Beeman]

That would have been a cool picture for sure!
Most, if not all of my trap outs progression has been sent to my email addresss via daily digital pics from the homeowner. I literally set it and forget it! lol
I make two trips:
1. To set the trap out.
2. To retrieve the set up.
Again, I do wait some time before I pick up.

[PatBeek]

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Mr Beeman - here is my email if you wouldn't mind sending me a few pics.

Thanks so much in advance:

lakeland_rain_barrels@tampabay.rr.com

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