Trapout Gibsonville Church

[ski]

Going to do a trapout with Joe and Jeff from the 2012 Guilford County beekeeping class.
The trapout will be at a church about 3 miles from my house. So far have done a site survey, and got some pictures and will start on a cone. Also waiting for a platform to be built by the church maintenance guy.



http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... 012001.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... 012002.jpg

[ski]

During the cold snap I built a cone for the trapout. Joe and I tried it out before I put the face board and cone on and the fit was not too bad, some caulk and maybe some weather striping and we may be good to go. Larry from the church built a platform and it is on site. Just need to coordinate a time and we can put the cone and hive in place and see what happens.



http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... one001.jpg

[Wally]

Looking good. More pics when when you set it up, please.

[ski]

I set the trapout up today with Jo and Jeff's help but I went out a few days ago and closed their entrance down to about a foot wide so it would be inside the cone box and I left an old box there for them to fly into so they would be away from the stain glass window.




I did not want to get silicone on the stain glass window or the bricks so I put "Press and Seal" down first then the cone box and put the silicone around the box to seal up the cracks. I hope the press and Seal and silicone will pull off the stain glass easily when we are done.





There were a lot of bees flying and walking around but they found the hive and the frame of brood with EGGS pretty fast and they started going into the hive.




A few other pictures.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... one009.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... one006.jpg


The last picture I took about an hour and a half after the cone placement and there were no bees on top of the cone box or on the wall just some bees flying around. The bees were going into the hive and there were foragers with pollen on their legs in the hive entrance fanning. So we are off to a good start.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... one015.jpg

Would be to glad to answer any questions and any comments are welcomed.

[ski]

3 day check after cone was set.
There were 4-5 frames of bees in the hive, a few bees around the base of the cone some traffic in and out of the hive. There was a steady stream of bees coming out the cone for the 20 minutes I was there watching. I had to look over the top of the hive to see the right hand side of the cone box and sure enough they had found a way into the church between the cone box and the window lots of bees loaded with pollen going into a one bee size opening.
Plugged that hole and watched for another 45 minutes and it looks like they are locked out again.
Off to another good start. lol

[ski]

I received a call from Larry the church contact today (Saturday) that there were a lot of bees hanging from the cone and on the hive. He also asked if I thought the queen had come out? By the time I changed out boxes and got home there was a light rain so I did not check for the queen or queen cells. But coming down the ladder I knew I had a box full of bees.

[Wally]

Looks like she did.....

[ski]

Checked the trapout today and there is normal light hive traffic with guard bees and foragers coming and going. Bees were exiting the cone at about one every 5 minutes. Much more calm then yesterday.

[Wally]

How's it going? Did the queen come out?

[ski]

The trapout is going well.
I would have responded sooner but out of town trips and computer problems have kept me off the internet. Trying to decide on a mother board for the new PC now.
Did the queen come out?
Most likely yes in my opinion.
The first box I removed and the current hive at the church had queen cells. So she did not enter either hive.
A little over a week ago there were a handful of bees trying to get into the base of the cone, but before that and since then I have not seen any activity in the cone. Maybe the bees trying to reenter the cone was some brood that hatched out and were on orientation/cleansing flights.
I think if the queen was still in the wall there would be more bees exiting the cone.

Planning to remove the cone late next week and hope the hive will rob the stores from the wall. We shall see.

[ski]

We removed the cone today (Sunday), would have done it sooner but have been out of town again. We had an Inspection camera and was able to get maybe a foot inside the wall and viewed some cone with pollen and some empty cone as well as a few bees.

I was in the hive Saturday and found eggs and larvae but no capped brood so the queen had just started laying. The bees produced another queen from the frame I put in that contained eggs. I also found an uncapped queen cell.

Planning on removing the queen from the hive tomorrow (Monday) and maybe a few frames of bees to remove the congestion in the hive. Don't want them moving back into the wall.
Hope the hive robs the honey from the wall over the next week.

[Wally]

Why would a queen that has never been in the wall, leave her brood and go into the wall?

PS. GOOD JOB!!

[ski]

Thanks Wally, just trying to do the the things that you taught me.

Why would the new queen move into the wall?
I have a full box of bees with a queen cell, so my concern is a swarm moving back into the wall. I should remove that hive and move another hive in to rob the wall, but a new beek needs a queen and I though moving the queen would be fun.

I checked the church today and the bees are not robbing the wall yet.

I looked at the other beeks hive today and we found eggs, if it turns out to be a laying worker I am thinking of combining the church trapout hive with the laying worker hive.

I tried entering this post from an E-reader grrrr that was not fun, never could complete and submit the post, on someone elses computer now.

[Wally]

Laying worker eggs, 3 to 6 per cell, on side of cell, not on bottom.

New queen, 1 to 3 on bottom of cell.

[ski]

Laying worker eggs, 3 to 6 per cell, on side of cell, not on bottom.

Yep, that is what I was looking for but these were single eggs on the bottom of the cell and it has been about 3 weeks since the queen cell hatched so a good time frame. What bothered me was that they were in the outside frame of the top medium of a 3 medium hive around some capped droned brood. But that is why I wanted to wait another week or two to see what develops... if they are drones and if more eggs show up will they all be drones what kind of pattern. They just looked suspicious to me.

[Wally]

Sounds like you have it down pat.

[ski]

Having it down pat is usually when it turns around and bites me.

So always open to comments or suggestions.

[ski]

Stopped by the church today and it looked like a few bees were checking out the wall entrance.

[ski]

Joe and I removed the second box of bees from the trapout on June 19.
I observed about a bee every minute entering and exiting the church so there are a few bees still in the church wall.
I am guessing the hive outside did not rob the hive in the wall because there was still nectar available.
My plan at this time is to wait a week or two until the nectar flow slacks off and then put a nuc at the church to rob the hive in the wall.

[Wally]

Is there pollen going into the wall?