[Hoochee]

Hello,

Never had an interest in bee keeping until a swarm took up residence in a column at our house. I'm in north Texas (DFW area) and we're starting to see near freezing temps overnight and day temps from mid 40s to mid 60s+. I've read about the Hogan trapout and a couple other methods to either capture the correct mix of bees and start a new colony, or optimistically in my case attract and capture the queen from the existing hive.

Question is: should I wait until Spring w warmer temps to attempt the trap out? On warmer days the bees are somewhat active outside the hive.

TIA

 

[rkereid]

Though I'm not real familiar with your winter temps, I'd wait until the bees are building up and more active.

I did a trapout from a tree basically using the Hogan method last year. It took 6 weeks to get the queen out. She appeared to be about the last bee out of the nest. I ran the exit pipe with wire cone into a shim in the bottom of a nuc box and then supered up as necessary to accommodate the population. Immediately I got lots of bees out and then fewer over time. I did add a couple frames of brood at different intervals. This was at the end of the active season with the queen coming out in mid October.

 

[joebeewhisperer]

I watched this a few days ago by Randy the dirt rooster guy getting them out of a column. I think he managed to nab the queen, but goes on to say the colony eventually died ( I may be getting 1 videos mixed up ).

 

[JWPalmer]

You definitely want to wait until spring before trying to nab the queen. I assume you have seen this from Cleo Hogan re trapping out bees?