# New swarm in trap, How long before removing



## fatshark (Jun 17, 2009)

If the swarm has moved in you can move them in the next day or so *any* distance. If they've been in there several days you should move them over three miles as they've now reorientated to the new location. They'll start drawing comb immediately but you should be able to shake them out into a new box. Make sure the queen goes with them.

Don't move them to a production apiary until you either know they've got low mite levels or you've treated them. Swarms from heavily infested colonies have a high mite load and need to be treated.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

Thanks Shark!

DD


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

I wish folks would get this 2' or 3 miles thing out of their heads. This is, yet another, beekeeping myth. All one needs to do is move the hive, with most flyers IN the hive if/when possible, and place some branches, or something that forces them to crawl around before taking flight, in front of the hive. This causes the bees to reorient their flight path just like they would if placed 3 miles away.


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

Not exactly Challenger. Not saying it can't be done, especially with a swarm, but you will lose the majority of your foragers. Only going into my 4th season, but I was "fortunate" enough to have to move my apiary about 150' in my first season using Michael Bush's method. Every night I brought back thousands of foragers that went to the "leave behind box" at the old location for 4-5 nights. I made a real obstacle course for them to re-orient at the new location, but many thousands continued to go back to the old location for days. Probably not as much of an issue with a swarm in a new location, but I don't believe the 2'-3 mile "rule" is a myth. The Michael Bush method for moving a hive all at once works, but it also proves the "myth" is mostly true. J


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## mlanden (Jun 19, 2016)

Hi, Dawg -- I've snared several swarms in a bait box in my front yard, and for 3 years now. I moved each in pre-dawn to a stand ~75' away. A little clump of foragers forms each time at the "old" locale, but fades after a day or 2. The period between swarm move-in and box relocation varies from 3-7 days. Maybe I've just been lucky (? -- not my style), but .....
Anyhow, doing all that moving to a distance then moving back thing makes me dizzy. I'm willing, even, to risk having the swarm take off rather than bother so much. There're always more swarms in the sea. At least where *I* live. If I were desperate, maybe I'd have another view.
Mitch


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

mlanden said:


> Hi, Dawg -- I've snared several swarms in a bait box in my front yard, and for 3 years now. I moved each in pre-dawn to a stand ~75' away. A little clump of foragers forms each time at the "old" locale, but fades after a day or 2. The period between swarm move-in and box relocation varies from 3-7 days. Maybe I've just been lucky (? -- not my style), but .....
> Anyhow, doing all that moving to a distance then moving back thing makes me dizzy. I'm willing, even, to risk having the swarm take off rather than bother so much. There're always more swarms in the sea. At least where *I* live. If I were desperate, maybe I'd have another view.
> Mitch


Mitch,

I have only been toying with honeybees for three years...so I can't say I know a whole lot...but...

I am experiencing the same exact thing you are describing. I move the swarms 50-300 ft. at night, place grass in the entrance, and sure enough, a very small clump of honeybees will arrive at the old swarm trap sight. If I have time, I sweep that small clump into a small box and return it to the main swarm. It has never been a problem for us here and we have caught upward of 75 swarms...


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## jhj8864 (Mar 8, 2014)

Figure I would post a swarm-related question here, vs. starting a new thread 

Caught a swarm in a nuc box and since it was going to be a couple weeks before I could move it to my hive location, I transferred the frames to a full brood box. I should've slowed down and researched best method to move the new hive to a new location, but hey, I'm me, so I just dove in. With the help of a friend, we moved the brood box to a location near my other hives, no more than 1000 -2000 yds away. Although I know it would've been better to close it up, and do the move very early before foragers went out enmasse, my friend couldn't be here until mid-morning.

Of course, there are now tons of foragers flying around and clumping near the swarm box location. I've done some reading now, and contrary to what I thought, that the bees would be able to locate their new hive location by queen smell, sounds like it may be true. What are the odds these bees are able to locate the new hive location 1000-2000 yds away vs. flying around lost in futility for a couple days and dying. Bee lessons are learned hard


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## bushpilot (May 14, 2017)

jhj8864 said:


> Figure I would post a swarm-related question here, vs. starting a new thread
> 
> Caught a swarm in a nuc box and since it was going to be a couple weeks before I could move it to my hive location, I transferred the frames to a full brood box. I should've slowed down and researched best method to move the new hive to a new location, but hey, I'm me, so I just dove in. With the help of a friend, we moved the brood box to a location near my other hives, no more than 1000 -2000 yds away. Although I know it would've been better to close it up, and do the move very early before foragers went out enmasse, my friend couldn't be here until mid-morning.
> 
> Of course, there are now tons of foragers flying around and clumping near the swarm box location. I've done some reading now, and contrary to what I thought, that the bees would be able to locate their new hive location by queen smell, sounds like it may be true. What are the odds these bees are able to locate the new hive location 1000-2000 yds away vs. flying around lost in futility for a couple days and dying. Bee lessons are learned hard


I'd put an empty box at the old location to catch the stubborn ones, and move them to the new box/location each evening or morning, when most of the foragers are in. Put branches or a piece of plywood in front of the new box to force them to reorient. Fivej speaks of this method above.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Because you moved during the day there is no way to be sure a virgin queen was not out. Yes do the box thing several times.


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## Lastfling (Feb 5, 2016)

I have a related question. As my swarm trap is in a tree, and not a standard box but with deep frames, would placing a standard deep box at base of tree approximately 4-5' below the trap and moving the bees to the new box cause any issues. My goal is to get the bees into a standard box so that they can ultimately be moved approx 50 miles away for a few months. Due to time constraints not all at one time, which is why the move from trap to box and then the more permanent move.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Fivej said:


> .... but you will lose the majority of your foragers. .... move my apiary about 150' in my first season .... J


If you were patient enough, you'd see that all those "left-behind" workers would find their apiary by smell in 2-3 days and reintegrate into the existing hives.
It is ONLY 150' feet away.
I would not even worry about it. 
Bees hate being homeless and without a queen and shift around just fine.

Another opportunistic thing - create a nuc with all those "left-behind" bees if need it and have a resources (spare queen, QC, etc).


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Lastfling said:


> ...would placing a standard deep box at base of tree approximately 4-5' below the trap and moving the bees to the new box cause any issues. ...


I really would not worry about it, *especially *if you have no time to worry about it.
Don't have time to worry about it? Then don't.
They will be fine and will figure out the 4-5 feet move.
No need to get into bee micro-management if time is short anyway.


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## Lastfling (Feb 5, 2016)

Thanks - Did the deed yesterday and all appears to have went well. A lot of returning foragers clustered at the old swarm trap location but I discovered that if I took the trap lid an laid it next to the returning clustered bees they would troop onto it and start fanning. I would move those bees to the new hive entrance and they marched right into the hive. Rinse and repeat a few times and the majority were hived. A look this morning revealed no bees at trap location with normal hive activity at new hive. I plan to move this hive in the next couple of days to a temporary summer home and return it mid / late summer to a permanent location.

I must admit I was amazed that they had built out 4 of the 5 foundationless frames in the trap and were working hard on the 5th in the short time they'd been there. The saying that a swarm is a wax building machine is definitely true.


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