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545 Posts
True enough. But I have to be a realist. Yes things "can" happen. But it is unlikely, especially for me.Selling shovels to the gold-diggers was historically a successful business model.
Still, there are few honest BS members right here who do not sell books or the like - and yet they keep the bees quite successfully.
But the particular context of each and every case is important.
Speaking of "too late"..
In late August of 2016, I took a small swarm off a branch.
These ones (look at the conditions):
View attachment 55921
Hived them into a plywood trap hive and fed them straight sugar ('cause I had nothing else).
They overwintered OK.
And so the show went on ..
I am not saying that I wouldn't welcome them if I were to see them, but I haven't seen a swarm in my life, much less in the past 6 years that I have lived here. I have 2 bait hives, in less than optimal positions and under less than optimal conditions. And like you, if i were to catch them, I would keep them in whatever I had on hand, and feed them whatever I could muster. But that is not a plan. That is an exceptional situation. Meanwhile I am just imagining the piles and piles of earwig pops piling up in there, and hopefully that is the worst of it.
If I am going to catch a swarm next year, it will likely be because I built traps and baited them and set them up the trees before swarm season, and got extremely lucky. I have no experiences around such things that allow me to determine a particular confidence level. So I can follow the conflicting advises and do my best and give it a shot. And/or budget to order a nuc and try to make something of it. But I honestly don't expect anything to happen this season, and without a workable, reasonable, sane plan for next season, there is little reason to pitch good money after bad.