$8 Swarm Traps! What go catch some free bees!

hey there guys Aaron brink with Brinks bees here today we're gonna be making swarm traps out of half-inch plywood we use the Tom Seeley research for this so we're gonna be making around a forty liter box out of half-inch plywood we're gonna get three swarm traps out of one sheet of plywood I'm gonna show you how to do that so anyway we're gonna go in we're gonna get a half sheet of sanded plywood on each side I think they're right around thirty-six bucks and then I'm gonna show you how to get that thing cut alright you all right guys so what you're gonna do at Home Depot once you get your plywood you're gonna have them make four cuts like that at 15 inches width wise don't cut it lengthwise cut it width wise you make four cuts at 15 inches and then you're gonna make three cuts at 12 inches wide going with lies as well and those are gonna be your starter cuts we'll still need a table saw at home but this will save you a lot of headache using the table saw trying to cut down this plywood one thing I do want to stress guys is your last 12 foot or 12 inch board will not actually be 12 inches it'll be slightly under because as you're making your cuts on the board you're losing a little bit of blade width but you don't need that last board to actually be 12 inches you need it to be at least 10 inches okay all right guys we're back at the house we've got all our boards cut from Home Depot what we're gonna do is we're gonna take one of our 15 inch boards okay and we're gonna cut it to 19 and 1/4 okay so 15 inch board 19 and fourth you're actually gonna cut twice so got one board at 19 and 1/4 and then cut another board at nights you know fourth and you're gonna need that scrap on the end all right all right guys so I have cut down to my 15 inch boards that I have and we made 4 cuts at 19 and a quarter inches and it's 15 inches high and we got these two scrap pieces these two scrap pieces are actually going to be our ends so what you're gonna do is you're gonna cut these scrap pieces down to 9 inches wide real quick all right guys now that you've cut those two scrap pieces down to 9 inches wide you're gonna cut them down to 14 and 1/4 high all right guys we're just gonna assemble the box outline here so you've got two pieces that are 15 inches tall by 19 and a quarter inches long and two pieces that are 9 inches wide by 14 and a quarter inch tall and all you're gonna do is when you start assembling your box you're gonna notice there's probably some like knots if you just got the regular CDX cheaper plywood they'll be like a smoother sanded side maybe not perfect but it's gonna be smoother than one side any of those knots or big in for imperfections like that we want those on the inside of the box where they're not exposed so much to the outside ring okay because you're gonna leave this thing hanging in the in the tree for a while so what I recommend doing to xml a symbol is put your your lengthwise board up against maybe your cut gate if it'll hold up like that and then what you're gonna do is you're gonna take one of your side pieces you're gonna glue the entire length of it always glue these you never want to skip the glue because this really helps them hold up a lot longer then all you're gonna do is you're gonna butt that together with your side piece and then I highly recommend a one-inch Brad nail to start to hold these together and I always start with like the top and the bottom to get them to be together to start want to make sure everything's butted together nice and neat really make sure that Brad nail gets in there hold it nice and tight press hard so that that glue really adheres and we're just gonna keep adding Brad nails okay we've got some Brad nails in there we're gonna bring it out and we're really gonna add quite a few I'd say maybe at least 10 along the length okay now that's one side what this actually becomes and you're gonna look at it what you want to do is have it nailed to the inside that becomes your frame rest okay so that's what we want now we're gonna go ahead and do our other one like I said this becomes your frame rest so remember smooth aside to the outside see you got a little knot right there move aside to the outside we're gonna add some add some glue here to the inside but everything up nice and neat get it tight and level get it all together let's add some Brad nails and you really want to make sure you're getting plywood once we add those now we're gonna finish the box I said this is just your box outline okay so once we've got all that together we can now add the other side of the box pretty simple what I would tell you to do is add go ahead add your glue on each side [Music] all right so now we have our brain rests and this is what its gonna look like so here's your frame rest and you'll add a cleat to that later on that's our box outline so I'll show you how that works so you got all that together and our frames go in perfect right so now we're gonna go ahead cut our bottoms and our cleats and our lids and then all we got to do is drill a hole put a entrance disc on there paint the crap out of this thing and we're done all right guys we're now gonna cut the bottom and our cleats so we have one of our 12 inch boards here that we cut and we're gonna cut it down to 10 inches and that 2-inch piece that's left we're gonna use that for our cleats so we're gonna cut this down real quick alright guys so we cut down our 12 inch board to a 10 inch board we'll have this two inches left over and while you still have your cut gate at 10 inches for the bottom that's the same width as your box so you need to cut a pleat so you're gonna cut two cleats free box okay to 10-inch cleats out of the two inch strip alright guys so we're gonna add our cleats now so we cut down those two inch strips to the same width of the box and what you're gonna do is you take that and you're gonna put glue all along the back end of it okay keep it away from about a half inch up so about the bottom half that's where you add glue and then what it does if people see the box here you nail this cleat to the top edge and that closes off the box so there's a flat lid and that makes your frame rest right there okay the two side edges so you want to be able to glue onto those two side edges so we add glue here along the side edge and down the bottom and then up the other side edge okay so to look like that that's how you add glue and then I'm gonna lay this down remember we want to want it perfectly across the top get it nice and tight and now we're gonna add some Brad nails like I said these are just swarm traps they will work perfectly and then add some nails down across the bottle so now we've added one of our cleats right there so you can grab onto the box it also closes up the box okay and then we'll add the other one on the other side and then all we have to do is add the bottom and make our lid and we're done that's a swarm trap drill a hole in it put an entrance disc on it and paint it really well you alright guys now we're gonna cut our bottom board or the bottom of it so we're gonna cut down our 10 inch board down to a 19 and a quarter and that's gonna be our bottom so the board that you cut from 12 inches to 10 inches you're gonna cut it in a length of 19 and a quarter all right guys so we cut our 10 inch board 10 inches wide and we cut it down to 19 quarter and we're gonna put that as our lid remember to make sure you glue it and Brad nail it really well all right guys we're gonna cut our lid now so we're gonna take that same 10 inch piece that we cut and we're gonna cut a piece that's 21 inches long so 10 inches wide 21 inches long all right guys we had some scrap wood after we finished cutting our lid and this is 10 inches wide it's the leftover you're gonna cut to cleats that are 2 inches wide all right to cleats that are 10 inches long and 2 inches wide and that's gonna be the cleats for you good all right guys we're gonna put the cleats on a lid and we're gonna be done with this project and I'll tell you how to set up your your swarm trap so you've got 2 cleats that are 2 inches wide and 10 inches long and you're just gonna attach it to the bottom of that lid like this okay so all we want to do is run some glue across the top of that and we'll set that on top of our cleats okay get everything lined up nice and neat and then we're just gonna add some Brad nails to hold it together five or six across the top do it on the other side and that that is our cleat for the top and it's not the greatest most fantastic lid but we're making this thing up by we've got this is this thing might last you maybe three seasons four seasons but this thing's literally 12 bucks super easy so we'll add another cleat on this side and the nice thing about this guys that I'm really stressed everybody and this is really less than 12 bucks the entire piece of plywood cost me 16 dollars so you're talking to a swarm trap that might really have costs you know less less than 8 bucks to build so my thing about I think about these swarm traps is if someone steals it I'm not worried about it okay so bring it up and this is your swarm trap so what I want you to notice is how the the lid fits down now that's gonna fit kind of tight and what I tell everybody you can actually go like 21 inches and maybe an 8 if you want a little bit of wiggle room in your lid but notice how tight it fits right there so when you go to set up your swarm trap guys what you're gonna do is it'll hold 6 Springs so what I tell everyone is when you load your frames I try to get two old dark just dry combs they don't have any nectar they don't have any pollen they don't have anything that wax moths would attack and what I would tell you to do is go get some BT or some Zen tari you can orders an Atari for me what it is it's a biological insecticide for wax moss you mix it in a gallon sprayer you spray it on your steward combs and wax moths won't touch your combs okay so what I tell everybody is take two drawn combs stick them in the middle and then you take all foundation you fill up the rest of you fill up the rest of the box with frames now here's the deal there's space underneath those frames the reason there's space underneath those frames is it so that that swarm can cluster so what you're doing is you're putting two fully drawn old brood combs right here and then foundation on these two and foundation on these two okay and all you'll need to do to set this thing up paint it really well and then drill an entrance hall wherever you really feel like but I highly recommend it beyond like the bottom third of the box okay and what we do is we add entrance disks once we drill that hole so like I drill a hole right there and there's my entrance disk so once you figure out that you've got a swarm all you have to do is turn that entrance disk to the closed position and now you're your swarms caught in there what I really do with mine is when I go and set them up in my lids on what I do is I go ahead and screw that lid down so what I do is I drill a small pilot hole right here in the cleat and I actually use a screw a small you know one inch screw and screw the lid down that way nothing can get in okay and I just leave the entrance disk open and that's all you do guys bait that thing with some swarm commander or some swarm lure and you'll have some swarms so I hope I helped you guys to catch some freebies this year as always please hit subscribe if you like our videos Aaron brink with bring speeds guys have a great day hey there guys one last thing I wanted to stress about these swarm traps is the easiest way to attach them to a tree is to use a ratchet strap or two and then you definitely want to bait these with a swarm commander or lemongrass oil or different attractants that are on the market I highly recommend a swarm commander as well from there like I said the easiest way to attach it to a tree is a couple ratchet straps or one or two and then I get questions of why there's so much space underneath those frames and this is all Tom su Lee's work on bait hives and how large of an actual hive you want is a swarm trap and this is around a forty liter hive it's just vertical instead of horizontal like using a regular tin frame deep box and the reason there's all that space underneath the frames as you want a bunch of space for these larger swarms to be able to cluster so what'll actually happen is when the bees go in and occupy the swarm trap the Queen will move up to those frames and that foundation and they'll start working that foundation and frames and she'll start laying brood in those and then the rest of the bees will actually cluster on the bottom side of those frames I highly recommend that you go and check those about every seven to ten days so that the bees don't start building down below the frames so just get them up vertical in a tree nice and straight you don't want to you know cockeyed in in a tree you want them nice and vertical from their batum ratchet strapping them really good to the trees so they don't blow away with the wind and just check on them every seven to ten days and the one last thing to guys you should be able to make three of those boxes from the measurements and cuts that I gave you with that one piece of plywood so make sure you have made four cuts out of the plywood at fifteen inches and then three cuts at twelve inches and just utilize the woods you've got so have a good one

Channel: Brink's Bees

Views: 78,474

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Id: HS37gIEsWuw

Length: 18min 41sec (1121 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 17 2019