# How far away from bee yard to place bait hive?



## dkofoed (Feb 25, 2014)

Is there a recommended distance away from a beeyard for placing a swarm trap/bait hive?

Maybe it's fine to place the trap right near hives, but I wonder if it could potentially encourage your bees to swarm?


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

It is unlikely they will swarm because of the trap being out, no matter where it is. However, if/when they do decide to swarm it is nice to have bait hives around, anywhere in the proximity, in my experience.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Bees swarm because it is in their make up. Placing a swarm trap with bait will neither encourage nor discourage them from doing so. Neither will it guarantee that should they swarm, they will utilize the trap. Like most things in life you pays your money and takes your chances.


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## B52EW (Jun 3, 2013)

This year by the time the weather and my schedule synch'd up to do a hive inspection several of my hives were already in swarm mode. I caught three swarms on my hive property, two in the same box. One box was about 50 yards, the other a couple hundred away from the hives. I also witnessed another large swarm way up in cedar near my hives that didn't choose any of my boxes and eventually took up residence somewhere else.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

I place mine about 30 - 40 yards away and upwind from the hives.


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

I keep a couple of old boxes with a comb in them at the apiary and a couple about 1/4 mile away. Bees seem to like to go some distance away from the hive before settling into a new home. About half the swarms I catch at the bee yard are from somewhere else, I guess the other half just can't resist my boxes, I have some tall trees nearby and would watch as my swarms would settle for awhile and then fly away. I was traveling through the mountains and saw a sign "honey for sale" I stopped and the beekeeper showed me a video where he had stuck a bushy pine about six or eight feet tall in his bee yard and the bees would go to it and stay while the scouts did their thing. Now I get most of my swarms. I got some good honey from the old beek, the jar with the crystal white "honey" was the best.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

1/4 mile would be better, but in the beeyard will do...


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## newbury (Jul 19, 2014)

dkofoed said:


> Is there a recommended distance away from a beeyard for placing a swarm trap/bait hive?
> <snip>


Whose beeyard?

Yours or someone else's?

Friend or competition?


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## KPeacock (Jan 29, 2013)

I scatter mine around wherever a landowner will have them. I don't catch many, but the boxes are easy to make, so they sit out in hopes of some free bees. I do keep a 10-frame deep and a 5-frame deep empty and baited in my yard at the edge of woods. One caught a wild swarm in my first year with bees and the little nuc managed to act as a safe haven for a little ball of bees no bigger than my fist when they fled their hive after a bear attack. I had to help them along with brood, but having that empty nuc away from the hives saved that queen and her staff from sure death. That bait hive was about 40yards away, give or take, and that laying queen managed to make it there.


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