put 3 boxes out on the berry fields today. after lasts years adventures, i suggested to the farm owner that traps would work better than just calling me to remove swarms from equipment. will let you all now how this goes.
to anyone near farms with pollination hives on them, consider talking to the farmer and the beekeeper. most of the time the beekeeper has no interest in chasing swarms and the farmer is happy not to have swarms in inconvenient places.
these bees have usually be treated and don't always make it without intervention, but that's a call you can make after you have the bees!
goodluck on catching swarms. ...schawee
It's an old thread, but how did this work out?
Ed
didn't get a thing, but it was a very bad year. no cutouts and no swarm calls. we had so much rain even into July, then summer lasted about 6 weeks.
will do it again this year and report back :-).
i did it because i am always called over there to get swarms out of the equipment and decided that traps would be a heck of a lot easier!
Ok. I was interested in whether the tactic worked...it made perfectly good sense to me...it would've saved everybody involved some time and trouble.
I'll be awaiting the reports! ;)
Ed