OK so this one has proved to be a lot of fun and is a long and drawn out story.
I had a call about a swarm of bees in n apple tree in Horsham. This was going to be fun! The swarm had entered and gone up deep into the tree so that my hover would not be able to reach them. There was an old birds nest in the bottom and quite a large cavity.
Initially we tried putting a swarm trap as close as we could. The box contains frames of drawn comb and some lemongrass oil as an attractant. The bees showed some interest but not enough to move the colony across. This is often very successful if you can get to the swarm soon after arrival, especially if they are in a roof and it is a hot day.
The Trap-Out
So the concept of a trap out is fairly simple seal the hole so that bees can leave but not return. Place a hive near by so that the bees can then use this as a home and try and entice all the bees out of the nest. Here you see the black cone that i made to allow the bees to escape the nest but not return. This was duck taped onto the tree and sealed. A swarm trap was then placed close by.
This initially proved pretty successful, so I swapped the box out to remove a load of bees and prevent them form returning to the nest.
Trap-Out Take 2
Trap-Outs only works if there are not multiple entries to the nest and if the cone is sufficiently connected to the tree so that there are no holes. Also the mesh on this cone was a little too wide so bees could squeeze through. Turns out that this tree was a bit like Swiss cheese!! The only solution was more duck tape!
And another cone. I also took a queen from another hive and put her in the box. This should re-orientate the bees living whit her and help to keep them away form the old nest. She was marked green and clipped to stop her flying She was also an non-laying queen that had not been mated.
This worked really well and soon the nuc was positioned on a table in front of the tree.
1st inspection showed the green queen running over the hive that was now about 3 frames covered in bees. no brood or eggs.
2nd inspection showed, to my surprise, eggs and brood but no queen!!
My hypothesis here was that the nest in the tree was now so depleted that the queen had abandoned and moved into the nuc. The colony had turned against the non laying queen and removed her with the queen form the nest taking over.
Sure enough the family found the queen on the floor.
These bees are lovely and placid and settled nicely into their new home. The queen is names Eloise after one of the family who helped. Lets hope there are not enough bees left in the apple tree to form a new queen and start again.
Updates
28/6/25 – Quick inspection saw Queen Eloise. lots of eggs and brood being laid down. Didn’t get a chance to mark her as she was scuttling around and i dint have a catcher to hand.
| Queen | QC | Brood | Stores | Room | Health | Varroa | Temper | Feed | Supers +/- | Weather |
| Yes unmarked | x | 0.5 | 1 | 10 | good | x | 1 | x | x | good |