My new pole swarm catcher

[danno]

Yesterday a friend called telling me he had 2 swarms.   One on a low bush that he wanted and one that was about 20 feet high.  He said If I wanted the high one to have at it.   I grabbed my new paint pole and attaching bucket and headed to the yard.   It worked perfect.  I extended the pole out to 16 feet, threaded it to the bottom of the bucket and checked the pull cord that pops the bucket lid on.  I stepped under them and pushed up hard under them.  Most fell in and I pulled the cord.   The lid popped on and I lowered them to the ground, unthreaded the bucket and put it in the cab of my truck.  Very large, very high swarm in 1 minute with my feet never leaving the ground 

[asprince]

Good Job! Sometimes you have to be creative.


Steve

[skflyfish]

Awesome! Got pics?

How are your swarm catching numbers this year? Last year was pretty good. How is this year?

Jay

[danno]

Awesome! Got pics?

How are your swarm catching numbers this year? Last year was pretty good. How is this year?

Jay

I didn't get pic's I wish I had.  My numbers are way off this year.   I have caught only 3.    This has been a really strange year.  I beleive I have only had one of my colonies swarm.   I think the best is still yet to come

[greenbtree]

I've had two swarm calls in the last week.  I just got listed though - don't know haw many there were in the area earlier.

JC

[greenbtree]

Oh, and another thing - did you build the pole catcher yourself?  Are there plans somewhere?  I couldn't have used one on either of my captures, both were on crotches of trees, but I have hopes for the future. :-D

JC

[Scadsobees]

I didn't get pic's I wish I had.  My numbers are way off this year.   I have caught only 3.    This has been a really strange year.  I beleive I have only had one of my colonies swarm.   I think the best is still yet to come

Weird...I had 4 hives swarm a total of 10 or 12 times (as far as I can tell) all really early in May, and that was after splitting them in April.  I had 2 calls, both in the beginning of may.  Nothing since.  I haven't gotten nearly so many calls after dropping my name down the list on ebeehoney.com, I was getting way to many when I was at the top!

Rick

[danno]

Oh, and another thing - did you build the pole catcher yourself?  Are there plans somewhere?  I couldn't have used one on either of my captures, both were on crotches of trees, but I have hopes for the future. :-D

JC

I did build it myself without plans.  This is how I did it.  I bought a cheap wooden handle roller.  I cut the bottom inch off the handle.  This gave me the threads to fit the long handle.  I glued it to a wood disk on center.  I fastened the disk to the bottom of a 5 gal bucket.   I drilled a small hole near the center of the disk into the bucket. I ran a pc of nylon cord through the hole and fastened it to 3 pc spaced like a teepee on the lid of the bucket.  I then pushed the cord alittle at a time through the bottom of the bucket until the lid rested a 1/4 of the way down the side of the bucket.  I then tyed a knot in the cord so the lid could only sit this far down the bucket.  You have to play around with this part until you have it so alittle pull of the cord flips the lid on the center of the top of the bucket.  Thats all there is to it.  with these thread from the roller it will fit a broom handle or paint roller extension.  I bought the biggest fiberglass extension I could get.  It wont work on trunks of trees but if the bee are hanging from small size branches it works like a charm.

Rick
We are so close but my bee's are not acting typical.  I caught one of mine that swarmed but they left on me the next day.  A couple of days later the neighbor called with a new swarm in a large bird house so I think I got them back.  Whats getting me is my swarm traps that have loaded up in the past are not produceing much this year