Potential Trapout-Early March Swarm

[Jacobs]

I have just spoken to a neighbor about possibly removing bees from a tree in an apartment complex near Guilford College. I plan to have a look at the situation in the next 3 or 4 days. I am wondering if there is any interest by our new beekeepers in seeing how it is done. You can start by reading Wally's posts in this forum about how to do a trapout.

If you may be interested, post a response in this thread and we can work on coordinating schedules, etc.

[Jacobs]

Just an update to let everyone know that the bees in the tree swarmed this past weekend. The management did not know where the swarm went.

[Jacobs]

I finally got the go ahead 3-4 weeks back to start the trapout. It is about complete. I will take 1 more 15 minute look at the cone to confirm no activity from the tree, and David and I will then remove the bait hive set up and seal the tree. If I am lucky, I will have a new Wayne's Bee queen from the bait hive.

[Jacobs]

David and I closed out this trapout this morning and I brought home the nuc of bees this evening. I did not see the queen when I looked this morning, but there were eggs, larvae and capped brood. I will look again to see if I can find and mark this Wayne's Bee queen.

[WannaBee1]

Maybe I'm not following this correctly but what made you suspect or how did you know this was a Wayne's Bees queen? Congrats on the trapout!

[mike91553]

I would think if you set up the trapout before the virgin queen mated that you could have gotten her in your box.

[Jacobs]

I used eggs and larvae from a Wayne's Bee hive. I am not certain that the post swarm bees in the tree ever got queenright--virgin or otherwise. This queen does have the coloration of most of my Wayne's queens. It won't get any varroa mite treatments, so time will tell.