Flowers are blooming and the bees are buzzing. This means it's time to hang some swarm traps in hopes of catching wild or feral honeybees swarms.
Early this year, we set the goal to expand our natural apiary by building swarm traps and catching wild or feral honeybees.
We have followed through and built 5 swarm trap form locally milled cedar, and are excited to see if any bees choose to take up residence in these pretty little boxes. (Find the plans here:).
The basic concept is to attract scout bees as they are swarming and looking for a new home. We have baited the boxes with propolis and lemongrass oil in hopes of enticing them to take up residence. The tops of the frames are also primed with 1" of chemical-free wax to get to bees going in a straight line as they build their comb while still allowing them to choose the size of cell (crucial for allowing them to choose amount of drones, resulting in a more natural makeup of bee population). -- we'll write a full post on this process with picture detail!
The boxes use 7 Layens frames (most popular style in Europe) and are big enough to house a colony through its first year.
This is a style of horizontal hive that aligns with bee's natural tendencies and allows for easy management. It can also be attached together to create a 14 frame hive (typical of this area). The same box can also be later used to split and multiply colonies.
Hanging Swarm Traps
We've hung the first of 5 around 20 feet up a tree on our land.
We're gearing up to head off and hang the rest around our county. We are looking for easy to access trees (for us as well as bees) that are on the edges of fields and streams that would be a prime local for a swarm to find and inhabit. A large tree with few branches near water and forage is ideal, and a clear pathway is helpful. Forager bees also act as scouts (looking for new home) and they like open and clear flight paths.
Slow & Organic
We're building our natural apiary the slow and organic way by choosing healthy and vigorous wild or feral bee populations that won't require extensive management, feeding or medicating. This way we can have numerous colonies of thriving honey bees and keep them in as natural state as possible while still obtaining yields such as pollination for our crops, food, medicine and wax.
We'll keep ya'll posted as the season progresses and see what we can catch!
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