When to move bait hive after swarm catch

[Randyw]

I put out a bait hive about a month ago, about 8 feet up on the side of a tree. Set up is a 8 frame deep, 1 frame of old brood comb, 7 frames with a wax starter strip and a few drops of LGO. I noticed a lot of activity on Friday, did a quick peek on Saturday and there is a swarm that moved in. My question, how long do you wait to relocate the bait hive to it's permanent location? Do you wait until there is brood to make sure they do not leave?

[divemaster1963]

I just wait a day or two then close them up at night and move them. At the new site open them up and place a few leaves in front of entrance to get them to do a orientation flight. Oh use a red light at night to see. If you use white lightit will draw the guard bees straight to you and then they charge.

John

[BeeMaster2]

I try to move them in a day or two. I had one that I waited a week to move and they were really wanting to go back to the old location. I put a palm branch in front of the hive to cause them to re orient.
Jim

[KeyLargoBees]

Make sure the swarm actually has moved in first....Look for normalized flight patterns and not the looping around and checking all sides of the trap of the scout bees....

I had a huge amount of activity on a trap last week and went back and snagged it after dark....got it home and opened it up....next morning peeked in and there were like 3 bees inside LOL...cursed myself and drove the trap back out to the trap line and put it back on pole it was on the whole time mentally kicking myself for screwing up....and after 30 seconds on the pole had scout bees on the trap again....bees moved in that afternoon and I gave them overnight to settle in and got them the next night after observing the difference of activity at the entrance.

[BeeMaster2]

The way to tell if they moved in is to watch the bees going in. When they start carrying pollen in you know they are settled. Scout do not carry pollen while searching for hives.
Jim

[KeyLargoBees]

Pollen gathering can sometimes be delayed by 2 days or more Jim cant it?.....I like to move em as soon as I can to prevent weird cross combing but maybe thats just me being impatient.....there is a definite difference in behavior around the entrance though...only been fooled once ;-)