Trapping out bees from tree

I was asked by a farmer to remove some bees from a hole in a tree, I offered to chop the tree down and take them away (I have a wood burner but he declined so this is what I am trying.

I have fixed a shelf for a nuc with 5 frames, the middle frame has eggs & brood in all stages including one day old eggs. This is placed with the entrance as near as the hole in the tree as possible with a veranda walkway from entrance in tree to Nuc.

I then fixed a base to the tree and used quick drying decorators filler caulk to seal the base to the tree. All entrances have to be filled up this makes it easy to get a good seal

Then I fixed my wire cone to the base the bees can see the entrance through the the wire but cannot gain access.

Over the next few weeks all flying bees should leave the tree though the end of the wire cone and when they cannot get back in should fine there way into the hive.

In the next few days the now queen less bees in nuc should make a queen cell and new queen.

The queen in the tree should stop laying when should finds no new food coming in and her workers all disappear. In time she will leave the hive with any remaining bees and probably fly off.

Cone can then be removed from the tree and bees will rob out the hive just leaving the comb.

I will then remove hive and relocate and could fill hole in tree to prevent this happening again, but probably will not do this as I have a nice bait hive for next year.

Is this going to work????

Why is the farmer not wanting the bees in a tree?

There is a wild colony in a tree not far from my apiary, that has thrown a large swarm and a cast this year. Both caught with bait hives not far away, and with the wild colony in tact.

It will be difficult to remove all bees and stop it being robbed out and then re-colonised in future years.

It will be interesting to hear about progress - there must be techniques that beeks use to entice bees out of undesirable places without killing them, but I don't know if this is one!

As long as the cone really is one-way, then it sounds as though you will at least empty the tree of most of the bees over a period - whether they will oblige by joining the nuc, and quite what the Q will do and when will be interesting. If you wanted to trap the Q then you could maybe build another enclosure round the cone with a queen excluder mesh exit

But why does he want to get the bees out of the tree in first place? They look pretty high up, are they causing a problem? It all sounds like a lot of effort when all you're expecting to get out of it is some more workers, although I can see it's an intriguing problem! Hope you can keep us posted, regards Andy

They are on his drive and near some horses I am happy to take the bees away and happy to set up a bait hive or do the same trap out next year

this method was used in bill turnbills book the bad beekeeper think it took almost a year to clear tho. also think his was a chimney.
id love to try it.
keep us posted on how it goes.

newportbuzz said:

this method was used in bill turnbills book the bad beekeeper think it took almost a year to clear tho. also think his was a chimney.
id love to try it.
keep us posted on how it goes.

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I haven't read his book is it good?

I will keep you updated will check the box soon as I am not sure how big the nest is and they could quite easily fill the box.

Removed a new swarm from a tree yesterday. They swarmed into the hollow oak last week and the process I used was:

Fitted trapout cone over main entrance. Fortunately there was another entrance on the other side of the tree a metre below, so smoked this for the next half hour. Bees exited top entrance but could not get back in. Collected assembled cluster off of side of tree at dusk. All in all took three hours. Entrances blocked and will be foam filled today to prevent re-occurrence.

The bees had to be removed as the entrance was 500mm from the kids tree house (a very fancy elevated play house next to the tree, but not actually attached to it), and no, the tree house could not be moved as the legs are cemented in place.

Sounds simple when you write it down, but it was dammed hard work.

I have never understood this method. You start with one bee colony in a tree, and one bee colony in a hive or nuc - that's two colonies. You work very hard for a long time, and you end up with - one bee colony in a nuc.

How does that work?

Steve

did you get the Queen by this method?

Steve Dyer said:

I have never understood this method. You start with one bee colony in a tree, and one bee colony in a hive or nuc - that's two colonies. You work very hard for a long time, and you end up with - one bee colony in a nuc.

How does that work?

Steve

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No just one frame of eggs in Nuc and colony from tree transfers over to nuc when they cannot get back in.

Last year I got chatting via email with a bee keeper in America who uses this method a lot. He puts a queen right colony in a 6 frame nuc (Langstroth) with a 2 bee space entrance to start with for a few days before opening the entrance wider.

The reason for the queen right colony is any trapped out bees will not fully accept the nuc as their new home without a queen in it but will use to shelter from the weather. To date he has yet been able to collect the queen from the trap out and makes it very clear the process can take a couple of months to extract the majority of the colony if it is a reasonable size.

Without a queen the trapped out bees will continue to forage for a few days but are unlikely to store what they have collected as you would normally expect for very long. After a few days they can become restless and spend the rest of their life doing very little.

Let us know how you get on with the trap out please.

Jeff Buzz said:

No just one frame of eggs in Nuc and colony from tree transfers over to nuc when they cannot get back in.

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Ah - no queen in Nuc sorry, that seems a bit more productive

I wonder what would happen if you stick the nuc over the hole - making a "front hall", the inside queen might come out into the nuc to lay? I must invent a one-way queen excluder...

Steve

Jeffbuzz - could you let me know the dimensions of the cone (I'm about to attempt the same kind of thing myself

Jeff Buzz said:

I haven't read his book is it good?

I will keep you updated will check the box soon as I am not sure how big the nest is and they could quite easily fill the box.

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its a nice enough book, a bit of a change of pace from the instructive stuff. id recomend it to read. but not nessarily at full price.

jenkinsbrynmair said:

Jeffbuzz - could you let me know the dimensions of the cone (I'm about to attempt the same kind of thing myself

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Only important dimension is the small hole which should be about 10mm just big enough to make it difficult for the bee returning bees to find.

jenkinsbrynmair said:

Jeffbuzz - could you let me know the dimensions of the cone (I'm about to attempt the same kind of thing myself

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About 2in at wide end and 10mm at the other just enough for say 2 bees too squeeze through and about 12in long.

Checked trap today bees have found the nuc and coming and going fine also lots of bees coming out of cone end will take a look in the nuc tomorrow and post some more photos.

bang the tree you will get the queen out

how long do you intend to leave the set up in place?

long enough for any new queen in the tree to try and mate and fail to return i presume.

Update on the trap out.

Left the trap for about a week, checked my nuc to find only 2 frames of bees so took the cone off to find they had found a bit of rotten wood and burrowed through so this was filled and trap is running again. Still lots of bees coming and going and Nuc is looking very busy.

Now have another one to set up bees getting into loft through air vent and have set up home in a cavity. Timber frame building so I could cut out the inner wall and Vacume out the bees but I think that a trap would work better no rotten bits of wood to dig through.

I will start a new thread and let you know how it goes if anyone is interested.

Hi Doc

I intend to leave it in place for perhaps 6 weeks.
Plan is to allow all all flying bees to exit, then wait until all the brood hatch, these then leave the hive and leave the queen with no pollen or food coming in with bees being depleted all the time.

She will then leave the hive with remaining bees to find a new home.

When I am sure that no new bees are emerging from the hive I will remove the cone and let the bees rob out the hive for a day or so.

I will then have a hive of bees with a new queen, a happy farmer and hopefully another farm to shoot over.

If it works I have learned a little more about bee keeping if it doesn't well what have I lost I have already been asked by the guy ploughing the field if I can bring him a hive or to to his orchard next year to pollinate his fruit trees so I have another out apiary.

drstitson said:

how long do you intend to leave the set up in place?

long enough for any new queen in the tree to try and mate and fail to return i presume.

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