# Gearing-up for a sweet trap-out



## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

Looks like a plan to me. Good luck.

cchoganjr


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

Cleo C. Hogan Jr said:


> Looks like a plan to me. Good luck.
> 
> cchoganjr


Cleo,

Thanks for the encouragement and approval.

Coming from you makes me feel better about the plan.

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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

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Several questions:

Since they have sprayed it on several occasions, I have no use for the comb/honey inside, nor does the homeowner want me smashing the cinder block to get to any of the contents. Since they have sprayed the hive, I'm assuming it would NOT be a good idea to allow the NEW hive-of-bees to rob-out the old hive once it's all done? And since it's cinder block, I would assume that any contents left behind will be not too much of a nuisance if the opening is sealed good?

Also, regarding the queen:

I have one active hive, but I don't feel comfortable robbing any brood comb/eggs/larvae from it since it's its first year in that hive. I'm not 100% confident in its strength yet. Also, the trap-out I did once before, the queen DID emerge and she began laying, the hive lived happily-ever-after. I'm not sure if I want to gamble on the queen coming out of this one also since I know that's a risky proposition.

So - - is it feasible to buy a $20.00 queen here locally and plop her in there with a queen cage/fondant soon after all the fun begins? How soon would be the best time to introduce a queen if I went that route?

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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Take pics and plan on the hive to be there a month or so. You could even take splits from the hive every now and then and add to your existing hive.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

How much are you charging for this job? How many hours, equipment/material dollars and travel expense are you spending on these pesticided bees? I would not spend five minutes on this project unless I was earning about $50 an hour plus expenses and profit to do it. You can buy that $20 queen and divide one of your hives, and have a new hives in less than an hour.


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

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odfrank, you bring up some good questions.

I have some answers, although some of them may not be satisfactory.

it's an older lady who doesn't have a lot of money, so I'm only charging her fifty bucks.

Also, I'm doing this more for the learning experience and fun of it. I think doing this is a blast.

She lives in the same town as me, so the travel isn't really a factor.

Plus, maybe I can get a word-of-mouth deal started around here, and THEN start hammering them fur the big bucks.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Those are all satisfactory answers if they make sense to you. You know the value of your time better than anybody else. We all sometimes do things for esoteric and indirect reasons. Most old ladies where I live have more money than me and I believe in procuring bees with the minimum outlay of time and expense.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Go for it Pat! I, oddly enough, am in the process of two trap outs both of which are free of charge. Both of which are from trees. One is over 20 minutes away from home. One has produced an extra 30k of bees for me and the other has produced a new colony 10 - 15k (I'm guessing) with a queen.
The way I look at it, some people do deserve a helping hand every now and then.
Payment for these are the smiles and the final "thank you I didn't have no one else that would help me". 
I believe it will come around sooner or later.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

Mr.Beeman said:


> Go for it Pat! I, oddly enough, am in the process of two trap outs both of which are free of charge.


Mr. Beeman. I too have two trap outs going, and both free,, and I don't really have the time to fool with them, but, in both cases they were going to spray the bees, because they could not cut the trees. I did not want to see them killed, so I agreed to set a trap on them, to get a couple good starts from each, then eliminate what is left. 

I tried my best to explain that the bees in their neighborhood was beneficial to everyone, and why not just leave them alone. The tree is in Amish country, right on the side of the road, and they are afraid the bees may spook their horses as they pass by. I don't think so, but, they were going to kill them. So, I will trap out 4 colonies then let them do whatever they want to do. Save as many as I can.

I am basically with odfrank on trapouts. I had virtually quit doing them because of travel time, price of gas, and other things to do, but, I can still remember when they were lots of fun, and to learn from them. Thirty years ago I would have driven 50 miles to do a good trapout. Now days, I pass on every one of them, unless they are going to kill them, and I can't find anyone to do a trapout.

cchoganjr


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

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Here are three photos from today.

The video will follow.

It seemed to go well. 

But , as you all know, only time will tell from here on out.


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

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*VIDEO :*


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Pat, I would place the hive much closer to the left side of the ac unit where the bees are clustering.


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

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Bee Man, 

Do you mean as far as height or where the entrance is?

Yeah, it's a challenge to find things stable enough for height. 

I'll see what I can cook up. I'm also thinking about throwing a queen in there too, but I'll have to buy it here locally. I don't have any queens laying around just yet.

Thanks.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

PatBeek... I believe I would move the catch hive such that the entrance is directly under the funnel, and if at all possible, much closer to the funnel, in other words higher. 

The bees will eventually find it, but why make them work at it.

cchoganjr


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

what about building a shelf with a bracket that hangs over the ac unit? 

Red= 2x4's Purple 12-14 in shelf brackets Green Shelf platform to set hive on


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

You people are killing me.....the time spent on catching a few worker bees....aaaarrrggggghhhhh!


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

odfrank said:


> You people are killing me.....the time spent on catching a few worker bees....aaaarrrggggghhhhh!


LOL,

The lone hive I have right now was from a similar trap-out I did back in September where the queen came out too.

And the hive was really about the same distance it is now from the cone.

But that's not to say I shouldn't move this one closer. I just may do it.

Thanks for the advice, guys.


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

Harley Craig said:


> what about building a shelf with a bracket that hangs over the ac unit?
> 
> Red= 2x4's Purple 12-14 in shelf brackets Green Shelf platform to set hive on


I love the idea, but it may be overkill at this point.

Thanks.

.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

odfrank said:


> You people are killing me.....the time spent on catching a few worker bees....aaaarrrggggghhhhh!


I started with a nuc and a package this yr in late april and now have 7 hives with the last one about ready for it's 3rd box because of agumenting with trapout bees. i had a spit I started in may with 3 med frames and a queen cell fill an entire box with brood and already a box of honey on top from piddlin with a " few worker bees" Besides, I think it sounds like he's doing it more for the old lady than himself.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

PatBeek.... If it works for you, don't change it. I had just always put the catch box much closer, and honestly, I never tried placing the catch box that far away, from the end of the screen cone funnel. I had always placed the end of the funnel right against the opening of the catch box.

oddfrank is one of my idols, and to a degree he is correct. In the early stages of the screen cone funnel method what you get is field worker bees, however, the longer the trap stays, you begin to get other bees as they exit for cleansing flights. rest, etc. 

when I developed the so called Hogan Trapout Method, I had people tell me that all I would get is worker bees on their way to the fields, but, hundreds of trapouts later, by hundreds of beekeepers, we now know that isn't true. I rarely use the screen cone funnel method any more because I want the correct mix of bees to take a 3 to 6 pound start, very quickly (24 to 36 hours) and the screen cone method doesn't get that until late in the trapping sequence. Even then you are not sure of the mix that you have. 

cchoganjr


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

This pic was taken 10 minutes after placing the hive. Two days later 20-25k of bees were in the hive.









This pic was taken 12 hours after the set up was complete. One day later, all the bees plus the queen was in the hive. To be fair, this was a swarm that took up residence one day before the trap out was installed.


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

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*DAY 2 UPDATE:*

I raised the height of my hive about a foot or foot-and-a-half. 

The bees seem to be taking more notice of the entrance and inside of my hive.

Also, there are many more bees exiting the trap-cone.


*VIDEO:*


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

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I'm going to take a poll...................or should I make this a bet?

Should I forget about buying a queen and just see for 'experiment's sake' if the queen eventually comes out?

I just want to see if it can consistently be done, without even throwing brood/larvae/eggs in the hive.

I (or they) successfully did it once before with a very similar trap-out as this one, but it could have been a rare fluke or beginner's luck.

.


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## Ben Franklin (May 3, 2011)

I got a queen to come out through the cone, but I would not bank on it again. For one thing the trap out was from a swarm. I do know I got the queen, I say eggs with in a few days. Then when I check this week I saw her running around.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

I think you will get a lot of different answers, here is my .01 cents worth.

If you leave the cone on long enough, (i'm talking 4 to 5 weeks) to allow all capped brood in the feral colony to emerge, and all the housekeepers and nursebees to have exited the feral colony through the cone and not able to get back in, I believe, in most cases she will come out, with the last of the stragglers that are in the colony, because they can no longer sustain themselves. One constraint here is, is the cone opening large enough for her to exit, but small enough to keep bees from returning to the feral colony.

However, I also believe there will be times she will simply stay with the brood in the feral colony and perish. Queens can live for a long time with little or no assistance. 

In the screen cone funnel method, I do not see the benefit of placing brood in the trap hive other than to start a new colony, and to give the bees that have exited the feral source a job, while the trapout continues. There is not a lot of reason for the queen to exit her colony due to brood in an external box. If she does come out, I do not believe the brood in the external box would have anything to do with it. 

In the trapout method that I normally use, the trap box is an integral, sealed, portion of the colony, and the trap is just another chamber. The queen comes over because the foreign odor from the brood you put in the colony, indicates the presence of another queen, and she comes over to inspect, expecting to find another queen in her castle. In the screen cone funnel method the trap box is an external chamber. No reason for her to come out, go into a foreign box to inspect anything, other than a place to go if she is vacating her original colony.

Both methods have their place, both will gets results, just in a different manner, and with different probabilities. To test any theory you must be able to replicate the results under the same or very nearly the same circumstances, and therein lies the problem. In the world of the honeybee, there are not similiar circumstances, even with colonies sitting side by side, in the same yard, on the same day, etc, etc,.. There are so many variables, not the least of which is the short lifespan of the bee, absence/presence of mites/SHB, size of colony,(# of bees) type and number of chambers to protect, etc, etc, The best we can hope for is to strive to duplicate as closely as possible, then take the results with a grain of salt, and NEVER use the words, ALWAYS OR NEVER, when talking about bees.

cchoganjr.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

PatBeek said:


> .Should I forget about buying a queen and just see for 'experiment's sake' if the queen eventually comes out?.


Patbeek.... I never buy a queen until the trapout is finished, and I determine if I have trapped the queen or not. There is not a lot of reason to buy one before finishing. The brood that you place in the trap will inhibit any worker bees from becomming laying workers. It is also quite likely that, if there is absence of queen activity in the trap, the bees will begin to build queen cells from the brood you gave them, (of course there has to be a viable egg for them to do this). 

I do not believe that placing a queen in an external box, would have any effect on her coming out and going into the trap box. If this were so, colonies placed on pallets, side by side, would have queens leaving their colony (boxes) and invading colonies, (boxes), adjacent to their own. But this is not normally observed in hives that are very close together.

Wait until the trapout is finished, then decide if you need a queen. The brood you gave them will emerge, and give the trapped colony a boost of housekeepers, nurse bees, fanners, wax builders, etc., as other bees become field bees and die. This will sustain the colony until you decide if you need a queen or not.

cchoganjr


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

May 30th I started a trap out of an old cedar tree that was slated to come down. I had checked on it last friday (about 15 days into the ordeal). 
There had to be 20k bees in the hive, building comb, storing nectar and pollen. These are the most gentle bees I have ever worked with. I figured there HAD to be a queen in there. Checked today, calm as all get out and idi not see the queen. 1 more week and they have to come home either way.


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

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Just to be fair, I am giving an update on this trap-out, even though it didn't go 100% - *ALTHOUGH THE CUSTOMER IS HAPPY !!!*

Basically, the bees all came out and absconded. None of them hung around my trap-out hive.

It's true that I didn't have any comb placed inside with brood/eggs, so I realize I was taking a chance with the outcome from the get-go.

However, the bees are all gone from the house. The lady is very satisfied and she paid me for the service I promised.

Just no bees for me in this case. 
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