[kustomizer]

If for no other reason than to gain the experiance, I have embarked on my first trapout. I have what I consider to be a somewhat unique problem, the tree with the bees in it is 20 feet from a well traveled country road. My first concern is having someone wonder off with my hive so I decided to build a camoflauged hive ( as I built it I couldn't help but think it was starting to look like something the Flintstones would have ). The bees are coming and going thru a hole not more than a foot off the ground so I plan to try to hide the hive in plain sight and hope it is unmolested for the time it takes to do the job. I will post more pics after I get it set up.
My wife wants to know why our other bees get plain white condos and the strays get a log cabin, we/I may end up having to update the entire subdivision to maintain peace in the ol' homestead.

 

[Iddee]

Hey, boss, iffin it works, it works. Go for it. :shock:

 

[kustomizer]

I anticipate beeing much smarter in a few weeks if not sooner.

 

[Iddee]

Them little insects will teach you, REAL QUICK.

 

[indypartridge]

What a cool hive! I live in a log cabin, and if my wife saw your pictures, she'd be wanting a "subdivision update" as well!

 

[kustomizer]

The trap is set, we shal see what happens.

 

[Iddee]

Pretty good camo....Where is the wire cone?

 

[kustomizer]

In the top pic you can see it, I painted it black and leaned a pine branch against it. The cone heads away from the hive at about 45 degrees and up just a bit, but the base of the cone is only a couple of inches from the front porch. I took the pics just as the sun was coming up, it was 38 degrees and not much buzzing was happening yet. I will go by this afternoon to check on them, I think they have only one door but I have read that they can be crafty.

 

[kustomizer]

4:00 and bees are gathering on the screen as well as around the back door I hadn't noticed on previous trips, fact is now I see a rather rotten spot near the top of the tree and I am hoping they dont have a way out way up there. As of now there are a bunch in the air and a handfull hanging in the trap but none in the log cabin yet, are they waiting for it to get dark? There are some tiny ants looking it over, will that be a problem? Beeing right on the ground I don't see much of a way to keep them out. It never warmed up past 56 degrees today, the next few days should be much warmer.

 

[Iddee]

Get all the entrances stopped and you will see them enter the trap quite rapidly.

The ants shouldn't be a problem, but some cinnamon spread around the ground at the entrance may help deter them.

Things should look much better tomorrow if you have all the holes blocked.

 

[Charles]

excellent cameo job, i don't think you'll have issues with passers by. did you get the hive over there with that motorcycle in the bottom pic I would have liked to see that picture...

 

[kustomizer]

My little orange bee truck, it has a rack in the trailer hitch that was made for an igloo ice chest but it works for lots of stuff because it keeps the weight way down low. I don't have any pics of them with anything other than an ice chest in them, but here is one of the other bikes I do have a pic of. I think by trapping experiment will be much cheaper at 45mpg rather than the dually pickup at about 10mpg on these hilly little one lane roads, as the trap is about 15 miles away, besides the weather is getting to be just right for lots of short rides. The biggest problem is I get PMS real bad on days like this ( parked motorcycle syndrome), my bride has to reign me back in and force me to go back to work now and again.

 

[kustomizer]

I made a trip out this evening and I have a softball size bunch of bees on each side of my frame with eggs I put in yesterday. I cannot see any other entrances to the tree, I would think there would be more bees in my log cabin, but there is what there is. The question is is this a begining or am I missing a hole?

 

[Iddee]

Only you can answer that. If there is a hole, they will soon be using it consistently. It won't be hard to find. I don't look in the box for the first 6 days, so I don't know what's there the first day. I only watch the bee flight. If they aren't going back in the tree, they are going to take up in the box.
Half or more of the bees that have came out were foraging, so you can figure there were twice as many on the frame last night.

 

[kustomizer]

How can you not look when it is so exciting, just like Christmas for little kids. There were not as many on the cone as I was thinking I would see but it has been cool here, my package bees have been sleeping in until 10:00 to 11:00 but we have a week of 85+ so that and lots of flowers that need looked at should get them out. I guess my camo is working, I have asked several people that travel that road everyday to look in on it for me and even with good directions and a picture they haven't seen it yet.

 

[kustomizer]

So I went and peeked in on the progress this morning, we are making the eggs into bees, as of yet I can't tell they are working on making a queen, but I am not sure what I might see at this stage. I have about 3 frames packed full of bees and they are drawing out comb and saving a bit of pollen. For those who may know, does this sound about normal?
Is there anything I should be watching for? Am I watching too much?
thanks
mark

 

[Iddee]

It has been 7 days. You should have capped over queen cells, like these 2.

If you don't. you will need to add another frame of eggs. It sounds like the first frame may have had larva only, no eggs. 3 frames of bees is sufficient. Whether good or not depends on the weather, the strength of the colony, ETC. It does mean you have all the entrances blocked, but check each trip to be sure they don't get one unblocked.

As far as too much looking, If I were doing one close to home, I would look at the setup daily, lift the top of the box and see how many bees twice weekly, and lift the brood frame out weekly.

 

[kustomizer]

Actualy I put the eggs in Friday, I was afraid to put the eggs in a box with no bees so I did it after I had a handfull in the box. There seems to be lots of larva, but nothing is capped yet, would they cap the queens before they do the others?

 

[Iddee]

The queen cells should be capped 6 or 7 days after you put the eggs in.

 

[kustomizer]

Well I guess we are about there, I will look in on them tomarrow