Thought I had a swarm. Just bandits!

[FlexMedia.tv]

Darn! Had my swarm catcher up for two weeks with only 2 old partial frames of honey from last year. They came, ate, left. Reminds me of my Daughters! I'm all out of honey. I wonder what are the chances if I add more blank frames and an attract an and hope for the best?


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[Fishing-Nut]

I've never used honey to attract swarms. It's guaranteed to attract bees. But probably for the wrong reason. I just use old brood comb. The darker the better, and lemon grass oil. I have had pretty good success with that.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

"They came, ate, left. Reminds me of my Daughters!"

How funny, I luv the humor.  Lol

Fishnut gave good advice: no honey, yes lemon grass oil.

[FlexMedia.tv]

My daughters eat like locus except locus leave!
Fishing-Nut, that's what I have. I'll add more frames and try that when I get home
Thanks!

[Fishing-Nut]

What u do is build pretty much a 5 frame nuc box. But it's about another half a deep frame depth to deep. I only put one or 2 frames of comb in there. And I'm not greedy with the lemon grass oil either. According to some folks standards I probably put WAY to much. But I put 3-5 dashes inside the box, and rub it all around the entrance hole. I'm sure there are better ways of doing it, but I've had some pretty good luck with that. All here at my house and they weren't my bees either.

[FlexMedia.tv]

How bout I do that and place it back it the same spot?
Thanks!
Art

[FlexMedia.tv]

I opened the trap and 20 flew out. Hopefully one was a scout for a swarm. Unfortunately I think most are just shoplifting. I added two more blank frames and lemon grass. We'll see what happens...

[BeeMaster2]

Only put one or two drawn frames in it the rest should bee foundation less. They are looking for a void that has enough space to build in.
Jim

[Fishing-Nut]

I didn't mean to say what "u" do......I meant to say what I do......I get on here and type on my phone. The "I" and the "u" are right beside each other. I didn't mean to sound like I was telling you what to do. But I would keep the box in the same place you caught swarms before. Just get rid of the honey. Then when there's a bunch of bees checking it out you can just about bet that they are scouts. Another thing I noticed is that scout activity looks about like robbing activity. Real erratic behavior, if you can keep up with one bee you'll notice that it's going in and out of the trap, my entrances are round and the bees actually crawl around and around the hole as if to be measuring it or taking some sort of note. The box is screwed together and the bees will be checking out all the screw holes and literally every square inch of the box. It's pretty obvious to me what there up to. Good luck to you though. I hope you catch them. I get crazy excited when I catch one.

[FlexMedia.tv]

Hey, I try anything until I find whatever works. Lol! I've only caught one swarm and that was last month. Actually I forgot about them because when I checked they had robbed that location (where my hives are) too. I re baited it and forgot. I estimate that they were there about 2-3 weeks by the amount of cone. They are in my hive now and are doing ok. Mean suckers while they were in the trap.

We just got a new ordinance that allows bees where I live. This is where the new trap is. Maybe trying to catch a swarm of city bees is different. I'm looking into a high rise, skyscraper, Statue of Liberty type swarm trap. *wink!*