Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: vmmartin on April 20, 2011, 11:43:09 pm
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I set up my first trapout Saturday after getting schooling from Mr. Iddee (thanks again). While going through the box that I wanted to get my eggs from, I could not see any. Plenty of capped brood but very little larvae. Since I could not see any eggs, I removed the queen from the frame that I found her on and placed her back into the hive and used that frame for me catch box. Went by and did an exterior inspection of trapout yesterday and the entire front of the box was covered with bees and the cone was covered up as well. I am going back tomorrow to peek inside. Any thoughts about whether or not yall think I got eggs or maybe made a screwup in some other way?
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Your inspection will answer your questions. Keep us informed!
Scott
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As Scott said, you will know tomorrow. If you had eggs, you had day old larva. If you find 2 to 10 queen cells, you will know you had eggs. If the box is nearly full of bees, you can remove it and transfer a couple of the queen cells to another box and start a second trap hive.
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eggs are sometimes hard to see. You need to get the sun at your back and shining into the cells, you will have to turn the frame just right and you can see eggs pretty good. If you are wearing a veil that will make it harder to see also. One of my veils is a plastic mesh and I can not see eggs through it but my cheaper folding veil that has metal screen on it I can see eggs pretty good. Some keeps use the magnifying reading glasses to see them .
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and the cone was covered up as well.
Watch that, keep it clear on the inside
I've had them jam it up and kill thousands to a clogged cone
Good Luck
I started one Yesterday and will start another today
Tommyt
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Good luck Mike! Glad that you are putting the great education we received to use so soon!
Please keep us posted with your progress and success! How fun!
How are your other bees doing with the smoke? I hope the danger has passed.
love,
ziffa
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Yeah martin, keep us informed. Im setting up my first trapout this weekend and more than a little nervous about it.
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Quick update. The bees were on the front of the box because there was for room for them inside. When I placed the 8 frame box up as the catch box I put the frame of bees and hopeful eggs in with an empty frame of drawn comb and the rest foundation. The brood has hatched and that frame and the empty frame are both completely full of nectar. NO Queen cells except for an old swarm cell that I did not close. The bees were extremely angry off! This was the first real test I put the Golden Bee jacket through and I did not get one sting. I am thinking that I need to replace foundation with empty drawn comb and try another frame with bees and eggs. The drawn comb so that they can continue to fill and the eggs to give them another chance. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.
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If all the brood has hatched in 5 days, you didn't even have open larva, much less eggs. Get someone to look for you and find 2 frames with eggs. Remove the catch box and put 1 frame in it and the other in the new catch box. You don't want to leave a box too small to hold the bees that have came out. They will abscond.
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Iddee, thanks for the advice. I went and looked into my hive that I removed the frame from for the catch box last week and there are literally hundreds of drones. Much much more than I have seen in my other ones so maybe that queen is drying up or wearing out? I came across two queen cells and a just emerged virgin queen from a migratory beek in town here today. Here is what I did. Hopefully, it was not a mistake. I removed the first catch box that is full of bees and placed the virgin on the top bars. Some bees immediately started like feeding her and others were crawling all over her. I have never done or seen this before so I am not sure what I was looking at. Therefore, I also placed one of the queen cells in this hive also, just in case they were attacking here or something. Placed the other queen cell in the new catch box with 1 frame of bees and nectar from the original catch box and they started checking out the cell and after I put the lid an they all started fanning and going in. Looked pretty normal. Still lots of bees coming out of the cone.
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Sounds like you got it under control.
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Hey Mike you sound like you know your stuff,a real beeman,just do what you think is right and it will work out. Bruce
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Thanks for the vote of confidence Bruce but I am a long way from "knowing my stuff".....just ask my wife. I met a guy at lunch today that knows you. He had a Sue Bee hat on and I asked if he was a beek and he said yes. He is down here from SD and his name was Bob ________? He said that he knew you. Hope yall are doing well in this drought.
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Good news. Checked both boxes Friday. First box did accept either the virgin queen or the queen cell and I have a mated queen running loose in there. Actuall think I saw some eggs. The second box did have an empty queen cup but I did not find her nor did I see any evidence of her. However, I think I might have been a couple days early on looking for larvae. All in all, the trapout seems to progessing well.
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I checked on mine last Sunday 5/1 and saw at least two capped q-cells. (Probably more but I didnt that hard after seeing the two) Going back today to see how things are going with it.
Got another call yesterday from my 911 center. It was a swarm that took up residence in a hollow tree and the owner wants them gone. Trap out #2 starts this weekend.
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Can someone explain how these trapped out foragers are able to raise queen cells from the frame of eggs we use in trap outs? I thought they were too old to make royal jelly. Knowing me, I probably missed something but if someone would be so kind to explain this, I'd appreciate it. Sorry, just coming from reading how to raise queen cells and the importance of young nurse bees to get the job done.
Thanks,
Steve
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Hey Martin...I checked on my trapout yesterday. I found the Queen!!!! Whoo hoo! A big ole plump golden colored one.
Iddee if you are following this post-I watched the cone for about 10-15 minutes and only observed 1 single bee leave the cone while I was there. I set the trapout on April 24. Do you think its safe to remove the cone to start the robbing of the honey in the wall? Or should I let it set for a little while longer to let my new queen to get established then remove the cone?
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K9. I was wondering the same thing. I set mine on 4-16-11 and it looks like they might have already absconded out of the tree. I thought about removing cone as well. Then I thought, " I spent way too much time and silicone to take it off too early" I had a very large hole in the tree to seal off. The home owner did tell me that he saw alot of bees around the cone last week but was not sure if they were leaving or hanging around. Isn't it cool to see a plan come together? I mean like you planned it too?
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BB - I am a newbie and not an expert, but I think that 2 things happen here. One, I read that older bees can revert to raising a queen (providing royal jelly) when needed, and also that in a trap out, when the nectar stops coming in (no foragers returning) the queen will stop laying due to lack of resources and teh nurse bees will eventually leave the hive as well since there is no brood, so they will then start raising anything they find in the box they are all moving into.
At least I think that's how it works. Hopefully one of the experts will chime in and correct me or elaborate. :)
love,
ziffa
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Hey BB. Here is my .02 I see alot of similarities between bees and people. Alot of stark differences as well. They are pissy when the weather sucks, they are very aggressive when somebody has been trying to take something that they worked their ever loving a$$es off to collect, the males are mainly concerned about themselves and chasing girls :shock:, and those in the same family will die in defense of their clan. :-x Even though they may go through different job duties in their short life, survival is of paramount importance. Being that they are extreme survivalists, the older bees will fer sure go back to baby bottles and changing diapers if needed. (another similarity to humans if you just look around at our society) Oops, sorry for the soap box mount. :-\. Besides them reverting back to an older job could just be the same job they were doing a week ago.
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Ziffa and VM are correct. Bees will take up new jobs younger, or revert back to their old jobs, whichever the hive demands.
If you started on the 16th or 26th, and the queen laid for 6 days before stopping, then 21 days for the last eggs to emerge, what date does that bring you to? Right now you still have emerging bees unless they absconded and left the rest to die. Then they need a week or so before being old enough to fly. I say 6 weeks bare minimum, maybe longer if they are still leaving the cone. One week minimum after the last one is seen exiting the cone.
Once the cone is removed, check the bees going in the tree for pollen. If pollen is going in, the queen is still there. Replace the cone. Robbers do NOT carry in pollen.
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Im going to let it set for about a week longer then remove it. Im 99.9% positive that the swarm I caught came from this hive Im trapping out so Im satisfied that the virgin queen didnt really have time to get real crazy on her egg laying. I know Im guess-timating but Ill take the cone off and watch for a little while. If I see pollen going in, Ill reset my cone. Thanks Iddee for all the trap out help.
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Thank you all for your input.
Steve
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HOT DOG! Been real busy and just went and checked my trapout. I am tickled to report that I have two hives, both doing well. The first box is a little low on numbers but alot of nectar and a queen with a great pattern of brood in all stages. The second hive is a double deep with 8 frames of brood in the top box (did not check bottom since the bottom board is 6 feet in the air) and 2 full frames of honey being capped. I went ahead and added a super and will go bring them all home tomorrow. Thanks for all the input and advice, especially you iddee. Can y'all tell I am pumped? This was a really cool experience.
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Don't you read nuttin' on th' innernet, VM? Everybody will tell you, TRAP OUTS DON'T WORK!!!
You are about as stubborn as I am. :-P :roll: :-D
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When I put a queen from my nuc into an ongoing trapout, do I need to introduce her in a queen cage, or just dump her in?
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When I put a queen from my nuc into an ongoing trapout, do I need to introduce her in a queen cage, or just dump her in?
I would introduce the queen
Why don't you put eggs in opposed to your Queen
Just curious
Tommyt
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I would use the whole nuc.
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I use my nucs to rob from-frames of eggs or larva or brood. I had rather have a 10 frame hive full of bees have the queen and let the nuc raise the new queen. I will put a frame of eggs in the trapout. It is in the side of a house and has been there over 2 years. Yesterday, there were lots of bees on the outside. Hoping for more than 1 box of bees.