I am trying my first trap out on some bees in a concrete block wall. The wall has had two colonies in it for at least 8 years.
I went with a Hogan style of trap out. I drilled a hole in the wall and fit a piece of 1" pipe from the wall to the inside of a brood box. I added in mix of drawn comb and bare foundation at first then gave them a frame each of eggs/larvae and capped honey after adding the one way cone a few days later.
I've been checking on them every afternoon for almost two weeks now. I didn't expect so many bees in the trap based on how many I have seen coming and going over the years. Also shocked by the number of drones!
During my inspections I have been looking for eggs in the drawn comb and overlooking the frame of eggs I added, mostly because the bees are so thick on it and I didn't want to mess with them. Today I checked out the frame that I added with eggs and realized they had a bunch of capped queen cells. I destroyed all of the cells and put the frame back in.
How often should I be adding eggs/brood to continue luring the queen/nurse bees out of the wall? I don't want to have these guys swarm on me.
I went with a Hogan style of trap out. I drilled a hole in the wall and fit a piece of 1" pipe from the wall to the inside of a brood box. I added in mix of drawn comb and bare foundation at first then gave them a frame each of eggs/larvae and capped honey after adding the one way cone a few days later.
I've been checking on them every afternoon for almost two weeks now. I didn't expect so many bees in the trap based on how many I have seen coming and going over the years. Also shocked by the number of drones!
During my inspections I have been looking for eggs in the drawn comb and overlooking the frame of eggs I added, mostly because the bees are so thick on it and I didn't want to mess with them. Today I checked out the frame that I added with eggs and realized they had a bunch of capped queen cells. I destroyed all of the cells and put the frame back in.
How often should I be adding eggs/brood to continue luring the queen/nurse bees out of the wall? I don't want to have these guys swarm on me.