[jim b]

What is a drone trap and what are they used for?

 

[Michael Bush]

Drone "trapping" or Drone "magnet" is when you use drones brood to control Varra. It's not a trap. You just put the drone foundation in and pull it out after it's capped and either freeze it or uncap it all and pull out the puapae.

An actual drone trap is usually something that goes over the entrance that looks like a little queen excluder that lets the workers in but blocks the drones from getting in (and out). It's a useful short term device if you need to stop the flow of drones for some reason. I've hardly ever used one and I own several.

 

[odfrank]

They are good for trapping (finding) a queen as a swarm runs into a hive.

 

[jim b]

Odfrank-
Neat idea, someday i hope to be able to use that.

Michael-
Thanks. I'm thinking my drones are not the kind we really want free to visit the congregation but i dont think i want to clog indefinately the hive with trapped drones. I'm not sure harvesting them would be any kind of good idea.

I'm beginning to think that feral bees in my area are just not a reasonable option for the time being. Maybe things will change in the future. We'll see.