Swarm Trap



How do I stop my own bees swarming?

There is much information on this issue . Really the main crux of beekeeping is swarm management. If you can manage your bees and reduce swarming, then you have really mastered beekeeping.

You can add honey supers to give you colonies more space and you can take out a brood frame in the extremities of our colony and spin them if they are full of honey. This will give your queens more space to lay in to but the eventual will happen. Your bees will swarm some time in their queens life.

You will begin to know when your bees are about to swarm. The obvious signs of large amount of brood hatching, the creation of swarm cells and  change in the bees behaviour, to name but a few signs.

Some  people like to use a phsyical control  namly clipping the queens wings. I do not support this practice. It usually results in a messy ball of bees attempting to swarm but with a queen that cant fly. This is a completely unatural thing and results in very confused bees.

If you carry out as many swarm prevention measures as possible and then accept the fact that you will have to deal with a few swarms from your apiary each year you will be managing your bees in a much more natural way and have young stock to take over for the forthcoming years. So the question you are asking is ok but how do I catch the swarms that I might lose? The awnser is simple. You put out swarm traps.

Why put out swarm Traps?

I put out swarm traps for 2 reasons.
  1. To allow my  colonies of bees to reach a point in their reproduction where they can swarm freely or they reach a point where they are all about to swarm.I will then go in and artificially swarm my bees . The difficulty in predicting when this is going to happen. Swarm traps help you predict when that time might be, and if you get it wrong, they are more than likely to go in to the trap, rather than choose another place. This generally happends when the necterflow reaches its peak after a warm wet period.
  2. To catch  feral swarms that are natrually produced in the wild. These wild swarms are so important in relation to the gene pool we use in beekeeping today. These wild bees have to deal with all that naure can throw at them and yet they still manage to swarm and raise successful colonies.

What elements make a viable swarm trap?

Research shows that European honey bees prefer a cavity size of about 40 ltrs.  Thats not to say that some bees won`t swarm in to a smaller or much larger cavity but the results of generally show that this volume is the most acceptable. Dont forget you may think a huge swarm has just gone in to a very small volume container  but its going to be at least 21 days before any young bees are going to be produced and the size of the colony will probably decrease by 10 or 20 % before any new young start to hatch out.

Shape is not important but its stupid to make a swarm trap without thinking of how you can get out the swarm afterwards. Some comercial swarm traps availible on the market are of the lobster pot / papier mache design. Their design does attract swarms but if you are not around within 24hrs to shake your bees in to another suitable container or hive, then you are left struggling with a difficult cut out. This is a shame and its the last thing you want to do is give your lovely new colony a load of grief. The best swarm traps are basically used  nucs and hives, though more so nucs, as they are more portable, lighter and less cumbersome to lug around. The other main benefit is that you can leave your swarm trap for 2 weeks or more if you wish, you may catch a swarm the second day after you put the trap out but the bees will start drawing out new comb and get on with establishing their new home

When you find you have caught a swarm you can then easily transfer it in to a new hive or nuc as they have built on to your frames that you just lift out. You can feed your bees easily, treat them agaist mites and generally manage the colony well.


what is a swarm trap?

A swarm trap is basically any cavity or box that has been modified to offer a suitable residence for bees that are in the swarming mode. The box must be of an approximate size, have a small entrance that easily guarded, offer good access, have some ready drawn up comb in, that is clean and pest, disease and sugar/honey free, allowing the colonys queen to start laing within a few hours. The Smell is also important ie previously used nest of deserted colony or a well used Nuc box! 









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