The Queen Escaped! | How to catch a swarm in a Cone Trap [Beekeeping 101 Tutorial]

good morning girls [Music] you never know the time that we're gonna be allotted for this little deal that we're about to get into so best to have a little extra smoke all right let's walk out here i want to show y'all what we got today this is a pretty interesting deal we've got a swarm of bees that have settled onto a cone trap that i've installed in the bee yard at my mother's home i don't know if they're all in it if there's so many of them they're hanging off the bottom but we're going to know shortly because we're going to take them off of it out of it and put them in a hive let's walk out here and have a look at them oh by the way here's something interesting happening in the arkansas river valley this is the privet hedge as you can tell it it tries to take over this this stuff is left around my place to go like it does uh simply because this is a nectar producing machine when these get totally in bloom it's going to look like snow laying over over cedar trees it's going to have them bowed down it's going to be smelling just super sweet in the air the odor is tremendous the honey bees work it put up great honey with it it's awesome speaking of awesome all right this is a cone trap that i installed back really and truly when you saw us putting out all of our swarm catch boxes um i don't know if that thing's got as many bees on the inside as it does on the out but if it does we're in for a bit of a ordeal it's really like i said it's 50s this morning um we showed you bees caught in a deep hive body and a deer stand they're doing the same thing that these are bees are doing except if these bees are half of what's in that trap that's a tremendous amount of bees jason and i are going to attempt you're going to see however this plays out i'm not 100 sure but our goal is going to be take these put them in a deep hive body when we when we're satisfied that we've got everything in there that we want number one the queen bulk of the bees we're gonna we're gonna take them and go literally right over here to a stand and set them down i'm gonna leave the trap right there with them i'll put it back up later um stay with us we're gonna grab our smoker we've got our protective gear we're gonna grab the box and we're gonna try to do this transfer so hang with us thanks for watching always one more item john you know that [Music] okay bees on the trap i want to get the most rickety piece of equipment on the place and try to get up there and lift the cone trap up out of the bracket bring it down hopefully not raking a bunch of bees off of that and successfully making this transfer i've got my entrance guard in place i've removed a few frames made a hole somebody right now thinking hey he's got better at zipping his hood on but not any better about having good stuff to work off of good morning girls have any of you moved in they're so tight-packed right here the whole of this is in this opening jason can you see this they've got a hole right here just a little bit of a vent hole that's approximately where the entrance to that trap set so all this seems simple right i immediately know of one thing after i'm up here but i have forgotten i had a little phillips screwdriver with me all morning until right at this moment nope had to have taken it out so okay i'm not 100 sure these bees are inside at all jason if you would give me one helping hand while you film i never asked more than i think you can handle if you'll stabilize my ladder i'm going to try to lift this up out of the bracket and bring them down but i got to get them where i can see them this ladder doesn't look too it's it's uh it's not it is definitely not your ideal ladder to work from while you balance a liquid bag of bees you know when the bees aren't okay the bucket's not heavy so i really think that this i think i've got it as long as i can get to a step and i can and still hold on your finger is good all right brother that's great so what i want to do i'm going to lay these bees right here and i'm going to go get my there weren't bees on that side correct correct i want them right there now i'm going to go get my little trusty screwdriver and let them start looking while jason while jason rolls the beautiful b footage the only reason i'm kind of adamantly needing that screwdriver is in the event that that queen was moved inside you know we could be rough with these bees this morning we've got time they've got time worst thing that can happen she flies if she flies we're going to have a rodeo now i am not hammering these bees with smoke i'm giving them enough smoke to roll back over we got bees going to that comb jason and i are watching for her if we see her we've got our clip handy that's one thing we did not forget okay if jason maintains beautiful bee footage right at the point of contact he may catch her on film they should lead her right on down in there if she's willing to go and i'm not really paying attention to what's happening down there i haven't seen her yet it looks like on this side that these bees are they gonna get the memo now according to over here this one this area i know i'm in y'all's way this side loading the frame so right now slow and easy the way i noticed these bees saturday afternoon hanging on this trap they've had rain they've had high wind and they have had cold to endure so all right jason you roll that beautiful bee footage i'm gonna run the truck and grab that screwdriver just so i know she's not in that barrel [Music] did i miss anything brother trying to keep the majority of this smoke out here if i hit that mass i could just just likely drive them into the cone yes okay you hold that thought i don't think i think we're looking at the entire swarm it's not a very big one a couple frames of bees but if the queen's solid she'll still make a box okay all right jason you might want to come around and be where you can see in here i'm not expecting a lot but then again okay that's about what i was expecting foreign so now y'all got my man here in the dry and warm i see a big old drone y'all shoulda left outside um trying not to crush bees if you're wondering what i'm doing here now i'm not a bee and i'm not pretending to know anything about them but if i was a queen bee i would have wanted them to have me in the house last night and early this morning that may not be the case but they sure do like this little spot right here you know jason there aren't that many bees here you would think we could find her right so what's up okay she's in this mass and apparently they're more interested in keeping her covered than moving her so and right there the little girl is everywhere but where i'm gonna catch her where'd she go there she went okay she's went down in the bucket now oh my goodness that's how y'all that is it folks that's how that works now maybe she went on down through that hole i'm betting she just that's where that's where luck comes in not skilled she flew right back to him cool a cool brisk morning she didn't feel like taking that flight right then they're going down in there with her so here's what we're gonna do i think we're fairly sealed right around this hole so so now those bees up here on top are fanning which i watched her land and go back down in that hole she hasn't come out had she have left out of this swarm they would have broke apart and went with her as soon as they realized that she's gone but it looks like they're gonna drop right off in there behind her going to run these bees right on up the comb i think and right down in that trap thankfully enough we've actually this is actually been a good pick for us to do this today because they're not interested in leaving they're interested in staying somewhere warm trying not to hammer the bees trying not to get too much smoke and confuse them you've heard the statement herding cats this must be how that works they seem to be happily convinced that she's back in the bucket now let me just give her a test here yep feels like the majority of them chained in there jason and i i think have got this honestly it's been a bit of a goat rope people i mean it's it's it's beekeeping we're trying to make them do something that they didn't want to do um i'm fixing to give this little bucket a wrap and drop them on that deck and if she hasn't already gone gone down that barrel and gone in they'll take her in i heard him fall then didn't y'all okay so she's protected in that mass that should have fell am i leaking bees or is that just just bees wanting to go there tapping on that box to let them understand that they've got a hollow to work down into this could have been a totally different scenario but the fact is we knew that that queen was still on or in this bucket got lucky and saw her messed up the catch got lucky again when she flew back and i laid eyes on her going in now when i banged that bucket they fell the mass fell on that inner board there's a hole in the inner board they're going to go through it to that comb and those other bees that you saw me shake off before i put the inner cover back on it once i had saw her and saw her go back i realized oh great i had a frame setting out grabbed it slid it over put it back closed it we got to take it from there and hope all is well now i'm going to give a little more smoke smoke here and i'm going to let jason be ready on his side i'm going to tilt the barrel up he's going to tell me what he sees if he says dude massive bees are almost a clear board well we'll remove it and look everything over and set them where they're gonna go so here we go a bunch of bees on the board but they're going in a mass it's hard to tell nope okay but still lots of bees right here a lot of bees in the corner these bees are fanning on the board there again she can be anywhere in this i just prefer to think she fell with that first good swatting and went in the hive man it'd have been great if we could have got her in the clip and placed her in the box then this would have already been the done deal but it's not the way it is in beekeeping it's just not always gonna go your way [Music] [Music] [Music] she either is or is not in that clip jason [Music] pull me twice i guess [Music] watch for i think she just flew out of this bucket jason did she get by us and we didn't see her go in they're acting like she's home but then they were already doing that before i found her in this bucket where we had the trap hanging is there any there are bees yes there are a couple different little spots that are kind of clumping up okay well they're definitely not leaving here in mass okay that could be her up there that got by us she got i know she flew from this bucket i never saw her hit this box okay then what i'm gonna do is go up there and look for see if she's in there now she's there you're right that's her on the outside on the bottom yeah coming around on my side that's her in the bottom going to the top there she is okay we may have won the fight but the battle still ensues so awesome video guy will you just hold her where we know where she's at i foresee some yard maintenance yard maintenance jason yard maintenance is a must okay if you will hand me said queen and if you want to come film this we may have another dog and pony show all right got my lid conveniently located right there she is she's rocking on ready we're going in this hole soon as she hits the launch pad there went the release she's in i'm closing it up okay what i do know is there's still a clump of bees on that limb we got a queen in the box we got a queen entrance guard on the front you all just saw her go in that box after quite the little goat roping um it's cold we don't have bees just in the air going each and every place they could possibly go the weather's worked for us weather's a big factor and these bees remain calm through me beating on them banging on them trying to catch their mama before we leave you i'm going right back up that ladder i'm going to see if there's another queen in this form remember this has got the smell all over it i'm gonna leave that there so those bees can come out who knows the way it's going it may be a swarm move in let's see what we've got on this limb so where i caught her was here these bees still smell her smoke that i'm gonna smoke that real good these bees are convinced that they're right i think they're wrong stranger things has happened we all balled up after did she hit there and crawl over and you all got she got away from y'all too didn't she oh houdini come out of the pack y'all didn't even realize it so y'all still think she's there oh up okay folks here's the deal you saw where they were at hung on the cone trap cone trapped down on the box after that things got a little rough a little sketchy we got it caught we got it done this queen obviously flew from right here below us back to this limb this is where she felt that she was supposed to be that's where she left those bees as far as she knew she went right back to this limb we got lucky the bees found her covered her up jason said hey there's a couple clumps up on the limb i wasn't finding her back at the box we came back to the limb first small clump i looked at as you saw i put a little smoke in them they fanned out she come out i reached and just caught her and all the bees that was with her wasn't trying to be very particular other than not crush her got her down examined the clip she's in it all as well i picked the box up i've moved it it's it's only a few feet we don't have a lot of bees that are going to be orphaned they will find a home if if they are out forging and come back the scent is going to be off of them pretty quick any of these hives will let these bees back in um that little swarm will make us a box of bees look like a a fairly young queen she didn't look old and long and great big um it's been a good morning we've had a lot of fun we appreciate you all watching as always and until we see you again roll that beautiful bee footage thank you have a great day you

Channel: Central Beekeepers Supply

Views: 274,433

Keywords: beekeeping 101, honeybee, how to keep bees, bee supply, beekeeping supplies, queen escaped, how to catch a swarm, how to catch a swarm in a cone trap, cone trap swarm catch, queen bee escape, catching a swarm in a trap, swarm trap, Catching a swarm in a cone trap, Cone Swarm Trap, beekeeping 101 tutorial, catching a swarm of bees

Id: ucm_GdF1UY0

Length: 48min 33sec (2913 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 23 2021