Central Oregon Beekeeping Association - Questions and Options regarding a Price-style Trap-Out

Reply to: Questions and Options regarding a Price-style Trap-Out

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<blockquote>Naomi Price wrote:

Greetings Kathryn, These bees obviously arrived via a swarm ; I never questioned their arrival by any other means. Rather than going back through your trap out process, how about we start from today. The trap out has been in place too long. The calendar is about to flip over into October, totaling ~13 weeks since the swarm arrived. Swarms are primed to buildout their new home. Just think what they could achieve within 13 weeks. Yikes! Bees left in a trap out are capable of learning how to return to their mother colony through the cone and into the connecting tube.&nbsp;

My suggestion is to remove supplemental feeding you have provided in the trap out. Start harvesting the bees from the trap box. These bees can be combined with a colony of yours. Continue to harvest trap out bees on a regular schedule. Just leave a frame of comb for newly entering bees a place to hang. You could also tape a heavy garbage bag over the blocking at the original structure entrance, then spritz it with Bee Quick, or essential oil of clove or rosemary.&nbsp;

A trap out eliminates food and water from entering the colony, which forces bees to go foraging. When those bees don’t return, more and more bees leave in search of what isn’t coming back into the colony. But now ‘winter prep’ must be factored into the process.&nbsp;

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