Yeah, it’s pretty high. If you can talk the beekeeper into doing it quicker, the better. Bees in the open like that really struggle in cold weather. It wouldn’t be hard to get them into a box. Once you do that, it’d be good if you had the scissor lift for a couple of days so you can lower it down slowly, say a meter at a time every 6 hours. You notice all the comb at the top is empty, that’s because the bees use all the honey keeping the brood warm. They need to keep the brood at over 90degF. Once the honey runs out & the bees can’t gather any more during a long wet period, it’s kind of curtains for the hive, if you know what I mean. I have a couple of videos on youtube of collecting external hives. One is beehive removal from a bunch of bananas, the other one beehive removal from a palm tree. I don’t know how to put the links on here. cheers
Fantastic, thank you, I’ll take a look at that in the morning after a good nights sleep. cheers
Exactly what I was thinking. There was an open air bee colony a few years ago on the back track to Cape Byron. Every time I did the walk I stopped by and watched the bees for a while. It was wonderful to be able to see the bees actually building the combs.
No matter how it goes down I just hope you get them.
So can you just set up a swarm trap anywhere and eventually catch a swarm?
Preferred volume is about 40 litres, small entrance towards the bottom, closed floor.
1 frame old brooded comb as an attractant. Some people put frames of foundation in too but if you look at research on how scouts examine the inside of a box it might confuse them into thinking the box is smaller. I check my bait boxes every day but if you can’t you will find the bees very very quickly build comb attached to the roof so you need frames in there. I put starter strips in with the frames wired with fishing line; maybe two or three. At the entrance I sprinkle some lemongrass oil.
I’m not like Dexter who is on the swarm collecting list…so he picks up a lot that are called in, hanging in trees and lamp posts etc, by the public… I just have three bait hives on my land.
I have one maybe ten feet up in a tree and two eight feet up on my shed roof in the garden.
ALL picked up swarms this season, one box attracted three 
Awesome. Man I can’t wait to get going. I’m in Alaska right now and the winter is on its way here.
Hey Dunc,
That looks very familiar. We live on a small island in Hawaii and started keeping bees 11 years ago. Since we had a pristine place for bees (few known pests), we decided to acquire all of our hives from the wild. Since then, we’ve literally removed hundreds of feral hives. (You can see a few photos on our website at www.RealHawaiiHoney.com.)
Like others have said, we would use a man hoist in this situation. We load the man hoist with two people (preferably, but one can do it), a couple of flat baking trays to place the comb onto once we get it cut away from the tree, a long knife for cutting the comb, a bee vacuum box, and a shop vac attached to a generator below via electrical extension chord.
It’s a lot of tedious work, and we’ve developed a system that works for our safety and that of the bees over the years. Some of our hives have been with us the whole time. Unfortunately we lost half (the strong oldies) of our hives to a wildfire in the kiawe forest a few years back. Otherwise, I believe they’d still be with us. I don’t know how it is there, but we believe we are doing the bees a good service by moving them into boxes in our apiary where we can monitor for pests/diseases and give them a hand if they seem to be getting over run by small hive beetle.
It’s such a wonderful way to give back. Leaving the bees alone to fend for themselves in the forest seems like the loving natural thing to do, but as long as you’re leaving them enough of their own honey that you don’t have to feed them something else, you provide ample space for them to grow, and you’re monitoring them, actually taking care of them is the more loving way to go. If you aren’t able to care for them naturally, then it’s true–best to leave them bee.
All the best, and bee blessed,
Molokai Meli
That’s a great catch rate!
I’ve now built three bait hives out of polystyrene broccoli boxes. One of the hives is made from a single broccoli box and the other two are made from two boxes stacked on top of each other. I’ve resized the boxes to suit full depth langstroth frames. The smaller box has 6 frames and the larger two each have twelve frames.
Resizing the boxes is easy although a little time consuming. I cut the boxes straight and square on a bench saw and reglue them sing polyurethane glue and wide packaging tape. The trick is to use a very small bead of glue in the centre of one piece to be joined and a mist of water on the other piece. Each cutting and gluing operation only takes a few minutes but then there is a four hour wait for the glue to set up.
Polystyrene foam is very weak so I build a light frame of rough sawn pine to support each hive.
The not so good news is that I’ve had plenty of bee visitors but I haven’t attracted a swarm yet.
are you using typical lures like lemongrass oil, propolis tincture, or old brood comb? Perhaps they just need some convincing? The only other thing I can say is that most swarm traps are not the “normal” size box. Swarms are looking for very specific requirements and traditional boxes are actually a little over sized for them. Try to make your traps no bigger then 40 liters in volume with a 1.5" opening toward the bottom. And I would have to double check my reading but I believe they prefer a north facing opening.
Thanks for the advice adagna. I have been using the 40mm entry and that would be close to inch and a half. I fix a bit of bird netting behind to stop birds and possums taking over and nesting. For an attractant, I’ve been using a short piece of fresh lemon grass from the garden. I do worry a bit about the chemical odour from the polystyrene and also the fact that it is quite translucent. I’ve painted them inside and out with plastic paint but that adds another layer of odour in the short term.
I’m building a 4th trap hive now, sized for 8 full depth langstroth frames. I’m going to put the entry up a bit higher so the scout bees will fly into a significant space as soon as they enter the hive. It will have one or two full depth foundation frames at the back and starter strips at the front. I get the boxes free but only one or two at a time.
We are getting swarms all over the NSW far North Coast here in Australia as the Spring weather warms up. If I don’t trap a swarm, I will collect one. There is a fantastic local network distributing advice about where swarms are located.
You can also try two Nuc 5 frame boxes stacked on each other as well. That is what I will be using when I get started.
I have been following this particular challenge right from the ‘get-go’ and…nothing?
Time for an update methinks!
You hoisted a brood box up there, right close to the nest, whacked a super filled with flow frames on top then hit Bunnings for a loooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnng tube didn’t you, you devil?
Just wondering, a year later what happened to the colony/s in the tree?
They are still there. Another beekeeper collected them but must have missed the queen or left enough bees and brood for a new one. A friend and I are talking about having a go.
well keep us posted (preferably with pics.) if you do, such a beautiful tree too…