Lures and Trap Placement

[kenglert]

Hey everyone, someone provided an answer in a previous post of mine that I should attempt to catch some ferral bees.  I'm planning on buying some lures and traps, I'm just not sure where to put them.  I live in a urban/residential area (Kansas City) but I keep my 2 hives on an Urban Farm with 7 acres.  The hives are kept near the gardens and house but there's 3 or 4 acres of wooded area beyond that area.  Am I safe to put the lures and traps there or would I be in danger of luring my own bees to the trap???
Any advice would be great.
Thanks
Kurt

[rbinhood]

98% of the time you will only catch a swarm be it from your hives or feral hives or even from your neighbors.  You can coat the inside of your traps with beeswax and if you have a few pieces of old drawn comb add it to your traps it will help in attracting the bees as well.  Good luck hope you have great success.

[hardwood]

You won't force your hives to swarm to your trap if that's what you're asking...unless they are swarming anyway. Practice swarm prevention

Scott

[beyondthesidewalks]

I've been experimenting with swarm traps for a few years and have yet to catch a swarm from one of my own hives.  Wherever there are swarms, if you have a swarm trap in place, you have a chance to catch them.  I've tried comb, commercially available swarm lures and Lemongrass Oil (LGO).  From my experience the most effective swarm lure is LGO.  You can find it on the internet or in a local health food store.  I've tried the dark comb thing and the only thing I trapped was wax moths.  In your locale you might have better luck.  I live in the south and wax moths are real bad here.

I make my own lures with 2" pieces of drinking straws stuffed with cotton.  I staple these to the wall of my swarm trap and the staple tends to bend the ends out some.  I drop 4 or 5 drops on the cotton sticking out of the top of the straw and that normally lasts me all swarm season.  The next year I just add 4 or 5 more drops.  I've heard of folks using Qtips or cotton balls in partially closed Ziploc baggies.  I've heard of folks just dropping LGO on the frames, bottom or sides of their trap.  They all seem to work.

Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley is a fantastic book and explains alot about the how bees choose their new home.  I highly recommend it.  Very interesting reading.  He finds they like a box with a 1.25" entrance, about 40 liters in size (about a 10 frame deep hove body) and they like their new home about 10-12' off the ground.  I violate all of those "rules" using 5 frame nucs with 3/4" entrances and I put them wherever it's easy for me to move them when they are full.  Seems like LGO makes up for all those shortcomings.  Good luck with your swarm trapping efforts.

[Michael Bush]

The lures do not lure them into swarming.  They just make the trap look like a good home to them IF they are looking for a new home.