[Steven Kan]

I’ve had excellent luck with a seasoned (e.g. previously inhabited) deep body with at least one frame of old brood comb, plus a few drops of lemongrass oil (citratus). I fill the rest of the box with frames so that I don’t have a problem with cross-comb or lid comb when they move in. The other advantage of using a “real” hive body (full sized or nuc) is that you don’t have to transfer them when you move them.

Then again I’m trapping in a known-good location, so location is probably more important than the setup of the trap.

If you’re trapping near a previous location of a feral hive, then that’s perfect. Bees have already established that it’s a good location, and if there’s any leftover scent from the previous colony, that’ll help, too.

Don’t put too much LGO inside the trap, or it can prevent the bees from moving in. But you can also place some LGO outside the trap to lure the scouts near, and then a modest amount inside the trap. I put one drop on the top board, one drop on the bottom board, and two drops onto cotton balls inside a closed ziploc bag. I caught 1 swarm in this location in 2016, three last year, and two so far this year. Prior to that, feral bees infested the wall in this location in 2011 and 2014. So the bees definitely like this location!

I actually captured my last capture on video! Click here:

You can scroll back a few hours and watch the number of scouts steadily increase over time and then plummet as they reach a quorum and decide that “this is it!” Then all the scouts disappear for awhile, and then the entire swarm arrives en masse at 02:44:00 YouTube time (e.g. the time on the scrollbar, _not_ the time-of-day stamp in the upper left).

I moved that swarm to my bee yard, 30′ away, and now I’m waiting for all the stragglers to give up before I reset the trap.

[Steven Kan]

So would a queenless swarm be a good candidate for combining with a queenright colony or a queenright swarm?

[Steven Kan]

You should be able to combine two swarms using a “newspaper combine.”

But you might want to let both swarms get established for a week or so, so that they’re committed to staying.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by Steven Kan.

[Steven Kan]

Yes! I registered my sole hive last week, and Conrad stopped by this morning to meet me and my bees.

He made some observations and gave me some tips, but definitely did _NOT_ present himself as a regulator or law enforcement person (though he did show up in full uniform).

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