Another trap out step by step

what are ya trapping out? bats? squirrels?

Honey bees? Do you get along very well trappin them?I have a bat job with honey bees using pretty much the same entrance,bees are behind the flue so no access to hive from inside do to interior wall layout.Customer first wanted both gone now do to location of hive said not to worry about either at this time.Wasnt sure how efective trappin bees was.

Trapping bees is very effective and done right is always 100% fool proof. Think bat exclusion with no other entry points to the cavity.
The only real issues are if Small Hive Beetle (SHB) are present in your area and the summer heat. SHB will overtake and destroy the comb, literally slimed, once the numbers inside the cavity are dropped below a level where they can defend the comb. The heat is an issue also when the numbers drop below a level where the bees can cool the cavity. Timing is the key then as to when you open it back up and let the bees on the outside go back in to rob out all the honey and transfer it to the box.

Trapster, I get all real well with bees. Yesterday began eight removals I have scheduled for this week. I'm doing more beework than batwork this year.

Nice post , how does the trap part work . You could sell those to guys up here . All of the honey bees up here have died . There always buying new bees

That's a porter bee escape sandwiched between the plywood. On one side it has a entry hole on the other is two exits but both exits have small metal spring wires in a vee. The tension is light enough to let a bee push past but the wires close behind it as it exits. The porter bee escape has been in use by beekeepers as long as I can remember to empty parts of a stack of supers prior to harvesting the honey. A standard langstroth inner cover comes with a hole shaped to fit the bee escape.
The second video shows an inner cover with the standard hole.

I could do the same thing on these wasp jobs I get I'm thinking . Do you have a video on how it works

Nice job, those porter bee escapes look a lot nicer to use than the silly witches hats made of screen wire that I was taught to use. How many trips back out to check progress do you figure on a job like that?

sweet post!

Warrior, can you give a few more details of the whole procedure? I understand the bee escape portion.. so you have a one way door letting them into the hive nuc or super or whatever that is. Does the nuc have frames with foundation etc? Are the bees totally trapped in the box or can they exit? Does the queen leave the brood and move into the box? Thanks..

I still use the cones from time to time. If you look at the platform in the fourth video you can see the holes where I stapled the cones on a previous job. The main advantage is on really large colonies I can route them into a screened box under the platform via a PVC pipe and have multiple exits via the cones. The pipe also allows me to better position the platform. The downside of the cones is that they are easily plugged by drones so I would never rely on a single cone but only set in multiples, also while they can be reused if you're careful they do have a limited life.
My return visits are once a week begining the very next day or in this case tomorrow. Since you know the drill this next is for everyone else.
The danger time is the first 48. If the bees find an alternate entry you are right back to square one but unlike a bat job if the entry is any distance from the bait hive total reposition of the hive may be needed. A plugged cone or escape can lead to the death of the colony and just like a bat exclusion a backup into the home is always a very real possibility. Oh, and unlike bats (supposedly) bees do chew and will compromise caulks and foams.
If all goes smoothly the first few days then the bees should quickly become habituated to the bait hive. What is happening the first fews days is a numbers game. The entire field force of worker bees plus flighted drones leave the hive each day of good flying weather so the time for a plugged cone or other failure will occur the first few days as it gets the most pressure. After the initial rush and the field force transfers to the bait hive it is just a matter of time and attrition as the house bees still inside mature and exit as replacement foragers. Eventually the bees still inside will only consist of the queen and young newly hatched bees to young to leave. If left in place this remanant will either starve from consuming stores, fail due to disease or parsites or more than likely the queen will abscond (abandon the cavity) with whatever is left.
At some point, usually around the thirty day mark, the cone/escape is removed and the bees in the bait hive are allowed to return into the cavity where they, like all animals I know of, will take advantage of free or very lightly guarded food and rob it all out to store in the bait hive.
Another reason for the weekly check is the bait hive, which at this point consists of three drawn combs (one capped honey, one eggs/young larvae, one sealed brood) and eight frames of empty foundation, will very quickly get an influx of bees and will become a fully fledged and operational colony in it's own right. This rapid growth needs to be monitored to prevent overcrowding which can lead to loss due to swarming, or overweight due to excess honey production. I already know that when the time comes that hive will be moved off of the platform and onto the ground when I open the cavity up for robbing.

The bait hive is a fully functional hive, free to come and go at will, though usually a small weak colony due to the immediate influx of new bees. Were it a large strong colony they could attempt to reject the new bees leading to fighting and loss. In this case I made up the bait colony by pulling frames from my other hives that could spare the eggs and brood. As posted it has three frames one of honey for food and one of sealed brood, bee larvae in the pupa stage that will hatch shortly to augment the small amount of adult bees that came with the frames. The most important though is the third frame which is eggs and young larvae. Note I made no mention of a queen being present in the bait hive because there is not.
Honeybee female fertility is determined by diet. All larvae are fed a diet of royal jelly for the first three days of it's life after that determines whether it will be a fertile laying queen or an infertile worker. Queens recieve an unlimited amount of royal jelly throughout their entire development. Workers are switched to a beebread (fermented pollen mixed with honey) diet from day three onward.
So by providing a frame with eggs I am allowing the bees to raise their own queen from eggs I have selected from one of my better colonies. One can always provide a queenright colony for the bait hive but a queenless one usually works better as you have better acceptance of the new bees plus you have a much less liklihood of swarming or overcrowding issues as it will take at least 18 days (before anyone says 21 the day count begins when laid) for a new queen to emerge and then up to another seven to fouteen for her to start laying.
The one absolute downside to a trapout vs a cutout is that the queen inside the wall will not exit and enter the bait hive. She is absolutely fixated upon her own combs and leaves for only two reasons, a reproductive swarm and an abscond abandonment. As stated her only option for leaving would be the abscond and she would not enter an already occupied hive. With a cutout one can often find the queen or she survives the ride through the vac.

Terminology;
Colony= the total of all the bees (one queen, several hundred drones and several thousand workers) plus all of their comb, larvae and stores. A fully functioning unit.

Hive= often interchangeable with colony but correctly hive is the box or structure that houses the colony.

Nuc= short for nucleus, first coined by Rev Lorenzo Langstroth to describe a small colony, ie., the core needed to start or establish a new colony. Can also refer to a small box or hive used to house this small colony, often a half sized box that holds five standard frames as opposed to the normal standard of ten.

Super= technically any box (open at the top and bottom) that is stacked to hold frames and comprise a hive or structure to hold a honeybee colony. Colloquially they are the boxes that are stacked on top or above the brood nest for the bees to store honey in. These can be of any size but the three standard sizes, as measured by height, are as follows shallow 4 3/4 medium or illinois 6 5/8 and deep 9 5/8 the western is in use in some areas and measures 7 5/8 and an obsolete standard jumbo measures 11 5/8

Foundation= sheets of proccessed beeswax imprinted with the base of the cells that comprise honeybee comb used to provide the bees a template of where to construct their comb. Purely an invention of the beekeeper as bees do not require a guide or template of any type.

Frames= wooden or plastic pieces that hold the beeswax comb. Originally nailed together strips of wood that held foundation but today can be entirely of one piece plastic comprising both frame and foundation or even completley drawn comb (Honey Super Cell or Permacomb)

Sure wish we had more honey bees up by me!
Looks like it would be kinda fun to do!

You should make a DVD . I would say write a book but I would never understand it . I would buy your DVD forsure

Thanks for the explanation. Very nice work! Another vote for the DVD!

Warrior that is x 2 for a DVD. Its an excellent idea and a chance to teach folks how to use the wasp warrior too.

For those interested the late Bob Evans went into detail on trapping bees in his podcast I did with him called Trapping Bees By The Numbers.

This was probably one of the most useful and informative podcasts I have participated in and on a topic I find folks are both scared of and curious about.

Bob always made handling a Bees swarm sound as easy as boiling water. When you watch his videos he even makes it look that way as well. Check out the video " Bag Of Bees "

http://trapperrobb.com/nuisance-wildlife...-cwcp-new-york/

You are using a shallow super to keep down weight, if you could use a porch roof etc. for support, would you use a deep? Maybe your one of those southern beekeepers that uses all shallows? I guess you could use a 5 frame "nuc" box too. I like eight frame stuff for the lighter weight.

That's a deep since it is only about nine feet up. Higher than that I use a five frame deep nuc box and rotate frames out.
I'm phasing out my shallows for mediums. When I get around to it I am going to build some jumbos since I refuse to run double deep brood and I have queens that fill up a deep and part of a medium with brood (I don't use excluders).

I will need two DVDs I'm sure to wear out the first one

Let me know how that jumbo thing works out, sounds like a good idea. I've got about 3 hives, all related, that will put brood in the middle three or four frames all the way up, no matter what you put on them. They are descendants of Wal-mart bees, so no telling! My mobile home insulation bees don't do that, they just swarm alot and mean. My store bought package bees all died years ago and I quit getting those.

For those not in the know the size of boxes filled with honey matters.

deep= 90lbs
medium= 60lbs
shallow= 40lbs

Those numbers are for boxes full of cured honey. Brood and bees weigh alot less but in any box bees will store honey so weight is always an issue when doing trapout.

Very educational. When I first saw the post I thought what the heck. I'm going to keep my fingers shut until I find out more. I agree with everyone I'd buy the dvd and I'm going to listen to Robb's podcast. Call me Carp I'm hooked.

Awesome. Looking forward to seeing you guys pull this one off.

David I am very proud of being able to see you grow your business and now taking bee removal and beekeeping to the next level. There really is a need for stinging insect removal with out pesticides and you right now are the man for keeping the topic fresh and interesting!

I wish you much success and really mean it when I say -

Go for it Warrior !

Number nine just called. My zombies (Walking Dead) just found their third honeybee colony on a set.

Number ten just confirmed. It's the church job I posted a month ago that will need a lift.

The porter bee escape works well. I just screw mine (through the side tabs) to the back piece of plywood instead sandwich between.
I think I'm up to 8 swarm calls and 4 trap out so far.
Trap out cone works in certain situations as well.