Last year I had the most exciting thing happen. I prayed for a swarm and it arrived right at the end of my front sidewalk! If you missed my exciting bee swarm capture last Spring, see it here.
Here the North Texas Winter has been more like a long Fall complete with a few brisk days, but mostly sunny cool and wonderful! With all this warm weather there is a good chance swarming will happen early this year. Now is the time to make some swarm traps so you can have a group of fascinating ladies to look after. The swarm trap I made is cheap, easy and takes no wood working skills at all.
I started by ordering some pressed paper plant pots from Greenhouse Megastore.com (I got 12″ x 13″) . I searched all over town but didn’t find a local source for them. They were very inexpensive at $3.50 a piece, however the shipping cost was as much as the total price of the pots. “grrrr” So if you can find a local source the total price for the swarm traps would probably be less. The project is still pretty reasonable at $20.00 for 2 swarm traps.
After I got my pots I painted them with a water sealer, so that they will hopefully last for several seasons. Let the pots dry for 24 hours.
While you are waiting, you can start wiring your top bars or frames to go in your trap. I have a top bar hive so I drilled a hole in the top of each bar and wove the wire through. String the bars together, cross the wire over the top and fashion a loop to hang the trap from. Frames with foundation in them would be easy to wire up also for a Langstroth hive. I used 3 top bars, don’t forget to rub bees wax on them before putting them in the trap. If you have some old brood comb or any drawn out bee comb the bees will be much more likely to set up shop in your trap.
Drilling holes in top bar for wire. Pushing wire through holes to string together top bars. Bars wired together ready to make loop to hang trap.
Now that your pots are dry it is time to plug up all those holes in the bottom. Wine corks work for this beautifully. Warning: if you don’t have a collection of wine corks, don’t use this as an excuse to drink all that wine by yourself. I am impatient, but not that impatient.
However it might be a great time to have a bee swarm party complete with tapas and lots of wine! Seven bottles of wine to be exact. Who ever said gardening wasn’t exciting and fun? It might be a good time to introduce the concept of bees to your neighbors! Once you have had fun acquiring your 7 corks, wedge them in the holes in the bottom of your pots. Leave one hole open for the entrance. If you don’t drink wine, than expanding foam can work well too, but sounds like a lot less fun to me.
Lemon grass essential oil is what we are going to use for bait because it smells a bit like a queen, apparently. Last year I put it on Q tips in small zip lock bags, but I have a different approach this year. I purchased 2 Glade scents refills, which I emptied promptly. Put a bit in your car, maybe your teens clothes hamper, where ever there is a horrible stench of a life well lived! I then removed the wicks out of the refill and soaked it in rubbing alcohol to remove the scent. The empty container was then ready to be filled with a bit of Lemon Grass oil. I taped it to the outside of the trap to waft it’s bee attracting scent into the breeze!
It is time to seal up your swarm trap and hang it up in a tree. Position your top bars or frame in the trap, leaving the wire loop coming out in between both pots. Use 1 inch dry wall screws to attach the two pots together around the rims. There you have it; a cheap, easy and fun(depending on the wine drinking party) way to attract free bees!
putting pots together with bars or frames inside. Attaching pots together with screws. Leave wire with loop sandwiched between pots.
One last thing to do before you hang your hive. We found that the seam in the middle was, well, to put it in my boy’s words “sketchy.” A thin line of Gorilla Glue did the trick. Expanding foam would probably work also. Gorilla Glue expands as it dries to fill the gap between the pots nicely. I am not sure how hard it will be to get apart once bees are in it, but I am thinking a sharp knife along the seam will do the trick. Here is hoping that I get some bees and get to try it out. The screws would have to come out also, before the bees can be installed in their permanent home; my hive.
Last year I was a little late in putting out my swarm traps. You have that one shot in early Spring. This year my traps will be ready and waiting. Get your traps ready. Stay tuned, in the next post I will tell you the ideal place to hang your swarm trap. Order a deep box with frames, a bee suit, smoker and get ready to be a backyard bee keeper!
How fascinating, Dash. I hope you’ll get a swarm this year and that you’ll tell us how your swarm traps worked.
Found your great article on Oakhill Homestead Blog hop. What a wonderful tip!!! We just lost a swarm because we didnt have an extra hive ready. I am saving this to try in the future and sharing on my blog, My Homestead Life
Hi, I love your site. I am a meal worm raiser too! Thank you for sharing. Oh, yes I didn’t respond to a swarm call once because I didn’t have a place to put them. Good to keep a Nuc box on hand(you can order a cardboard one for less) just to have a place to put that swarm!
Good luck with bees this Spring! Blessings, Dash
This type trap loses lots of swarms. A five frame box about 18 to 19 inches high bt 18 wide works so much better than these tree pots. I had 3 swarms leave this type before I could remove them. I made 10 of each last year. Caught zero with the tree pot, 6 with the 5 frame.
Hi Micheal, Thanks for giving your feedback on the pot style swarm trap. Very interesting! I have caught 4 swarms in this trap and hived them all. I wonder what makes the difference? Several friends of mine also have caught swarms and hived them without any issues. Bee keeping is such a mystery! I like the pot trap because it doesn’t take ANY building skills and it is cheap & super easy to hang. Thanks for taking the time to comment. I love feedback from other bee keepers. Sounds like you are doing great! Blessings, Dash
I made 10 of them last winter and 8 wooden ones. In late april I put all the traps up. I caught a swarm fairly quickly with one of the wood ones. I had 4 traps (2 each) on a farm. I caught a second swarm on the same farm, again in a wood box. That evening I retrieved the trap and happened to run into the farmer. I told him I caught a swarm and he said he had seen the bees in the trap as he had been mowing grass near the trap. This confused me as there was no grass to be mowed. After questing him, I realized he was talking about one of the tree pot traps. The bees had left it. On another 4 trap farm, 2 of each again, I got a swarm in a wood box in a power line. A few days later, my grandson and I were checking traps one afternoon and we saw a huge swam hanging on the front of a tree pot trap. We left to get a box to put them in. We were gone 20 minutes. The bees had left and were about 50 feet up in a poplar tree at edge of woods when we got back. I also got a swarm in a tree pot and a farm where it was the lone box. My Son, Grandson and me checked it about a week after this last event. It had a swarm in it. We went back that evening and the bees were gone. I have pictures and video of these last to swarms in the tree pots. I painted the inside of my traps(all) with wax melted from old comb. I also painted the top bar of a new frame I put in each trap. I also used 2 old frames with wax in each trap with the new one in center. In all my catches, the bees were building on this new frame. I used swarm commander for lure, the same way in all traps. After ten days I put it on a q tip, rubbed a little on entrance then put the q tip toward the rear of the trap. I bought one of those flexible grabbers to do this with. I have pictures of my traps if you want to see them. I gave my Brother one of each of the traps I made last year and he didn’t have any luck. I have no clue why the bees would stay in the double tree pot traps. They looked good. Another one of them had scout bees visiting many times when I was there but they never moved in that I am aware of. I am building a few more wooden ones for this year.
Hi Michael,
That is crazy! So frustrating to have a swarm so close & not keep it! I have caught 4 swarms in those traps and hived them all up. Sounds like you did everything right. What a mystery that they didn’t stay!I did bait mine a little different, but I don’t see why that would have made a difference. I caught your comment on my youtube channel. Thanks for reporting your results. We can all learn together. Blessings, Dash