Musings about Swarms and Trap Hives: Getting “Free-bees”

Most people don’t mind getting freebies—getting something for nothing. Beekeepers aren’t the exception. They always need to find ways to save a bit of money with their beekeeping. 

Whether it is just a hobby or a full business, it can be expensive. Sometimes it’s like that bee vac, except it sucks up your money. So free bees are usually welcomed and one of the ways to get them is through the use of trap hives to catch swarms.

 My bee partner Marcos hanging a swarm trap in one of the shade trees used on his coffee farm. We started an apiary together a number of years ago, filling all the hives by catching swarms. The first dozen gave us enough honey that year to make us a bit of a profit.

Although this blog post focuses on how I use trap hives (or swarm traps/swarm boxes) in conjunction with my top bar hives (tbhs) and with the Africanized bees  in Honduras, the basic principles will work for whatever style of beekeeping or hive boxes. It’s a matter of taking the general ideas into consideration and adapting them to your own beekeeping situation. 

The Why of Swarms and Trap Hives 

Swarm traps are my preferred way of increasing my hive count and replacing those colonies that for whatever reason I lose. The Africanized bees  of Honduras give me an advantage since they like to swarm more than other races of honeybees. Swarms are plentiful during certain times of the year and easy to obtain using trap hives. 

But at the same time, the Africanized bees’ defensive behavior and my preference for top bar hives made it a challenge to find a system that works for me and my beekeeping. Trial and error got me to a point where I have something that functions well and with which I’m happy.

I could also make splits to increase my number of hives, but that involves getting into the brood area. That is when the Africanized bees will really get upset. Normally you also need to find the queen. Africanized queens can be elusive—they like to run and having riled up bees doesn’t help to locate them.

A swarm moving into the trap hive in the mango tree behind my house. Every year I was assured of getting one or two swarms in this tree.

Swarms just about always stay when they move into the trap hive on their own. I have very little luck shaking swarms out of a tree in Honduras. They usually take off the next day, even if I give them a couple combs with brood and honey. This is one of the characteristics of Africanized bees.

An added advantage is that swarms can also introduce genetic diversity into your apiary, especially if the bees come from a survivor hive that has gone untreated for years. If the swarm happens to come from one of your own hives, it helps lessen the sting of the possible setback in the honey production. And the swarms hit the ground running, often building up fast.

Trap hive design considerations

In general, honeybees are not that particular about where they will nest or the type of box you give them. If you think about the places where you find wild colonies, it makes you realize they can adapt to different cavities. You can find them in hollow trees, in walls, in roofs, and in the ground. I even saw one that had moved underneath a sofa someone had in storage. There are also the occasional open-air colonies.

Any type of box can potentially be used as a trap hive. However, I wanted to find something that would work well for me with my beekeeping situation and beekeeping style—something that was functional, inexpensive, and problem free.

Top bar hives and compatible dimensions. All my bee colonies are in top bar hives, mainly the trapezoidal Kenyan top bar hives but also the rectangular Tanzanian top bar hives. They are both a very inexpensive system to use and they also help me to control the Africanized bees a bit more. I wanted to design a trap hive that would function with my tbh system. I also wanted to avoid having to cut out the comb from the trap hive box and tie it to top bars, like you do when removing wild colonies.

So I made a smaller version of my tbh boxes. I kept the same dimensions so the combs would fit and smoothly transfer into the permanent boxes. 

Most of my trap hives are trapezoidal shaped, with the same dimensions as the permanent tbh boxes. But I also have some rectangular-shaped top bar hives and make some trap hives with their measurements.

My trapezoidal swarm boxes have ten bars across the top, but only eight of these are useable by the bees for comb building. The ones at either end are used to snug the rest of the bars together and then are nailed into the end pieces of the box. The rectangular-style tbh trap hives are a bit narrower—nine top bars across the top of which seven were usable for comb building.

These sizes have worked very well for me. The swarms in Honduras readily move into them. Some beekeepers talk about using a five-frame nuc box as a trap hive—too small in my opinion. But at the same time I wouldn’t go with anything bigger than ten bars. There is the added bulkiness for hanging it and the added weight for lowering and moving it to the apiary if the swarms fills it fast.

My trapezoidal swarm boxes are made to the width of ten top bars. The outer two bars snug the others together and are nailed into the end pieces of the box. This leaves the bees eight bars from which they can build comb. It is then covered with plastic for rain and to seal up the top. The crisscrossed stings are attached to some bent-over nails and used to hang the traps (and carry them!).

Light weight boxes. I usually have to carry my trap hives a good distance, maybe even several hundred meters. The terrain in Honduras often does not permit a truck to be driven close to where the traps are hung or where the apiary is located. It can be rugged and steep. Carrying a heavy box can get uncomfortable. Thus I like to incorporate light-weight materials such as aluminum printing-press plates, plastic and tin cans with the sturdier wooden parts of the box—something to help cut the weight.

A large swarm can easily fill the box with combs and brood within two or three weeks. This means there will be an even larger amount of weight to take down from the tree and to carry to the bee yard. That doesn’t help the beekeeper, especially if you need to lower the trap from a precarious position up in the tree and then carry it up or down a steep hillside. Also, you sometimes need to remove the trap from the tree by yourself without a helper.

The rugged terrain of Honduras can make hanging and moving trap hives a chore, especially if it’s heavy with bees. Here Marcos (right) and I are making the rounds to hang swarm traps on his coffee farm, where we have an apiary together. The crisscrossed strings over the top make nice carrying handles. 

Bee containment. The swarm boxes needed to be sealed in such a way that bees would not escape when transporting them. Africanized bees have rightfully won their reputation for being ornery. They will look for any small hole through which they can escape and then sting the beekeeper. 

There are enough other added obstacles with taking the traps out of the tree and then moving them in the dark (I wait until all the bees have entered for the night). I don’t want to have to deal with angry escaping bees and also avoid tripping over tree roots or rocks as I climb up a steep slope in order to get the box to the path or out to the road. And in some ways the bees are worse at night because they will crawl on you and not fly. You leave with those bees clinging to you, waiting for their chance to sting you.

I use plastic to cover the top and keep out the rain. The plastic also helps to seal the area around the top bars and ensures they do not come loose or shift when moving the trap. The only holes in the box should be the two entrances, one on either side. These are easily plugged by stuffing a piece of sponge into them.

Trap hives filled with bees, waiting to be moved to their new home. These were actually taken down the night before and moved to the apiary the following morning. One of the boxes was leaking bees so it got put into a feed sack.

Hanging the traps. A piece of string is crisscrossed over the top to help hang the swarm box. This string is attached to some bent-over nails that I put in the top corners of the trap. The main hanging rope is tied to where these cross each other.

As an added bonus, this gives me a nice handle for carrying the box.

Low cost. I wanted to keep the trap hives inexpensive. This was both because of limited financial resources and also because of theft. If one of the boxes would be stolen or vandalized (which has happened), the loss would be as minimal as possible. Most of the materials are recycled or used. Losing the top bars is what usually hurts the most if someone takes one of the traps—I buy new wood to make them.

Vandalism can occur to the trap hives. My guess is that someone took a long branch and decided to poke the side of the box. I normally try to hang the box within sight of someone’s house. I also try to hang it in a way that it won’t be so obvious to someone passing by.

Multiple uses. The boxes can also be used if you make splits or nucs. They are useful for removing/shaking a swarm from a tree. They work well for transporting honeycombs that I will sell as cut comb. And they also work well as an improvised chair or work bench!

Baiting the trap hives

The trap hive needs to be baited to increase your chances of catching a swarm. To help attract the scout bees, I liberally sprinkle melted wax inside the box. I usually use clean rendered wax but melting old dark combs is an effective alternative. I do not put old combs inside the box since wax moths would readily find them. They are a year-round problem here. 

The outside is baited with lemon grass, which is commonly grown in the backyards of many Honduran homes. One way I’ve applied it is by making a very strong tea and painting the outside of the box with it. Hondurans make a tea to drink, using two or three blades of grass (and sweetened with honey!). I take a good fistful to make my bait tea. I have also taken a clump of the grass and rubbed it onto the box, to the point where I see green.

Marcos with the hedge of lemon grass we planted on his coffee farm. I usually bait the traps by rubbing lemon grass on the outside until I see green. Melted wax gets splattered on the inside. Boxes that have already been occupied by bees work the best—they have a good bee odor.

I like to use top bars that have a ridge of comb, either from having been harvested or maybe from old comb that I removed. It all helps to attract the swarm and make them stay.

The boxes are rebaited with lemon grass every other week or when I make the rounds to check them. I don’t usually need to rebait the traps that have had bees in them previously. They have residues of wax and propolis and a strong bee smell. Maybe I will just rub a bit of lemon grass on the outside before hanging them.

Choosing the trees for the trap.

I’m not a good tree climber so I usually look for a tree with some low branches so I can get up into it. I remember as a boy how my two brothers could swing themselves up into our maple trees without a problem, leaving me down below to face their taunts. Better yet is if I can find a tree with a suitable branch that I can just reach while standing on the ground. 

I usually make the rounds on my scooter so carrying a ladder is out of the question. And it’s just uncomfortable lugging the ladder around, because of the rugged terrain and the distance often associated with where I hang the boxes. I would rather carry two swarm traps at a time rather than one and a ladder.

Trap hive in a mango tree. This one was easy to climb and had good branches for hanging the trap hive.

Swarms seem to favor some types of trees more than others, for whatever reason. Fruit trees have worked well for me, especially mango trees. Their branches usually make climbing and placement of the traps easy. Orange trees are also good but the spines on their branches make placement a bit trickier and difficult. 

On the coffee farm, I like to use the guama trees they use as shade, even though their branches make placement more difficult. They spread out in such a way that it’s harder to find a place where the trap can easily be hung but also stay steady in a wind. Down in the valley the jicaro trees and their tangle of branches work especially well (and they’re easy to climb also!). I have not had much luck in pine or oak trees. 

 Trap hive in a jicaro tree.

What I have seen is that the trees which catch a swarm will work year after year. In some particular trees I have caught as many as five swarms in one season, hanging up one box after another as they get filled.

I try not to choose a tree that is in the very middle of woods. I prefer the tree to be on the edge of a field or other open area. You want the scout bees to easily find the box.

Ideally the tree is also within sight of a house so someone can keep an eye on the trap. Kids are curious and have messed with my swarm boxes. Some limbs and leaves to camouflage them are good.

Hanging the trap hive.

What goes up has to come down. Hanging the trap hive is usually the easy part. Removing it when there is a swarm inside can be difficult. Take this into consideration.

Ideally l like to hang the trap about ten or twelve feet up in the tree. This is out of reach (and usually out of sight) of kids from the ground. It is also high enough so the eventual bees in them will not easily bother (or be bothered by) cattle or horses that may be on the ground below the box. But at the same time, trap hives hung lower, maybe only six or seven feet above the ground, will also work. Africanized bees don’t seem to be that fussy. I’ve caught swarms in extra trap hives that were setting on the ground behind my house.

My traps hive usually hang freely from their rope. At the same time, I try to rest them against a limb or the tree trunk so they don’t move in the wind. The rope used to hang them is thrown over a branch above them and tied off down below where I can reach it from the ground. I tied this one off on a nail I pounded into the tree.

I try to hang them so they can be easily lowered. A large swarm can easily fill a box within two weeks, making it quite heavy. It can be difficult and awkward to remove it, especially when one is trying to maintain his or her own balance while standing on a tree limb. 

I usually let the trap hive hang somewhat freely, only resting against a branch to minimize movement in a wind. If necessary, it could even be tied against the branch to help keep it more stable. I don’t set it on a limb or in the crotch of a tree. All the weight is supported from the crossed ropes over the top of the box. The main support rope is thrown over a branch above the trap and tied off down below in an easily accessible place. After stuffing the entrance, I basically just need to untie this rope and lower the trap to the ground.

You could set the trap in the crotch of a tree but it sometimes causes problems for the removal. Although the trap will stay steady, it will be necessary to lift it up and out of the crotch to remove it. This can be difficult with a heavy trap or if you only have one hand available (the other is around a branch so you don’t fall).

An example of what not to do with a trap hive. A big swarm moved into this box that got set into the crotch of a tree. The trap was nice and stable but the weight of the bees and their comb building after a couple weeks actually wedged it in there. It didn’t want to come out of the crotch and the slippery bark of this tree didn’t help us. We actually ended up having some combs collapse in this one that night.

Removing the trap hive from the tree.

I usually like to leave the trap hive up in the trees with the swarm for a week or two. Since Africanized bees like to abscond more readily than European bees, I don’t want to disturb the swarm until they get established with comb and brood. When they are at this point I have no problems with them wanting to take off. They normally have enough space in my swarm boxes to hold them for three or so weeks.

The only thing you should need to do is stuff something into the entrances and then lower it down. Always be prepared with a veil, even though you may not need it. I usually have my simple mosquito-net string veil down around my neck, ready to pull up if necessary. You may also want to have your smoker lit and ready, for whatever emergency. Sometimes a group of bees will be hanging outside the entrance and smoke will be necessary to coax them inside.

One person can lower the trap hive by himself, especially if enough extra rope was used and it was hung in a way to make this simple. Two people usually make the work easier. For example, if the rope is long enough, the person on the ground can lower the box (an extra piece can be tied to it if more would be needed). The person above in the tree guides the trap, maybe swinging it out a bit to avoid branches below it. When within reach from the ground, the person in the tree grabs the main rope while the person below will grab the trap in his or her hands to lower it the final distance to the ground.

Marcos stuffing a sponge into the entrance of the trap hive. The box was sealed up except for the entrances on each side. I try to hang the trap hives in a way that makes taking them out of the tree easy. Although Marcos could stand comfortably on this limb to reach the swarm trap, he only had one hand available to close up the hive and help lower it.

Finally, the trap hive and its bees are taken to the apiary and placed on a hive stand where they will permanently stay.

Use care to avoid combs breaking in top bar trap hives. There are no frames to support the combs. Lower the hive carefully and carry it gently to the bee yard. Large swarms cause more problems than small ones. Within a week or two, a large swarm can have full combs built, heavy with brood. One bad bump can cause these new combs to collapse, making a mess and possibly killing the queen in the process.

Finally, don’t forget to open the entrance once it is located in its place in the apiary.

Transfer to their permanent box.

I again wait at least a week before transferring the bees into their permanent hive. I want them to get used to being in the new location. The transfer is a rather simple process. Basically all the combs are lifted out of the trap hive and placed into the permanent box. It takes more time to set up the permanent box than it does to move the combs over to it.

The transfer of the new hive into its permanent box is usually a simple process—lift the combs out (two at a time in this case) and pass them into the bee’s new home. I always try to keep the combs in the same order at this point. I don’t specifically look for the queen but I do check the brood and its pattern.

---Tom

Comments are always welcomed. Let me know what you do with your trap hives or what you think of my system. I’m always open to answering questions. 

If you found my blog post about swarm traps useful, please share it.

Musings About a Double Colony Hive

Seeing anomalies and other oddities is common enough with beekeeping in Honduras, because of both the Africanized bees present here and also the population of different native stingless bees. One these experiences for me involved a hive with two colonies.

When you read about bees you often come across information and references to double colony hives. Normally this is where the beekeeper will set up two distinct hives side by side, both with their own queen but who share a common stack of supers. Mine was a bit different—being that it formed naturally and with two distinct types of bees.

This anomaly, if you could call it that, began with a failed swarm catch. I went to get a swarm that a neighbor had probably told me was in one of his trees. But as is common with Africanized bee swarms, they don’t like to stick around when dumped into a box. The bees left after a day but the now-empty box stayed in the backyard, set up off to one side on a hive stand. And it stayed there for a good while, by itself under a couple small trees.

It was probably a good month or so later when I noticed the activity in the box. I was out in the backyard puttering with the rabbits or cutting the weeds with a machete when I happened to look over at the box. There was something coming and going from the entrance and my first thought was that a different swarm of honey bees had decided to take up residency in the box. Trap hives work very well here for getting swarms.

It turned out that they weren’t Africanized bees but a type of small black stingless bees that are native to Honduras. My wife often calls these “zacarias,” sometimes “magwas.” They almost look more like a fly. Although I have seen them before, I’m not quite sure what their true name is or the scientific one. They are the type of bee that will get into your face or your hair when riled up. But like other native bees, they don’t have a sting but will try to bite you, similar to an ant bite. They aren’t dangerous but can be very bothersome.

Like many stingless bees, they build a long tube as an entrance to the hive. Over the years the tube kept getting longer. It was common to see a bunch of the bees lined up all the way around the edge of the tube. Under it they built a bunch of sack-like structures. I´m not exactly sure of their purpose but someone suggested that maybe this is their way of confusing predators as to what is the actual entrance.

I had built their box as a swarm trap/nuc hive/swarm catching box—whatever the need may have been for a smaller box. It was big enough to hold seven of the frames I used in some of my Tanzanian-style top bar hives. The sides and bottom where actually a sheet of aluminum used by the printing presses of a newspaper. I wanted to keep it light weight so is would be easy to lower out of a tree. Bees in Honduras like my boxes just fine.

The hive ended up getting moved around a bit, even from one house to another. It eventually ended up in the backyard on the corner of an old broken down pila, a water basin common in houses in Honduras. My wife used it as a stand for some of her flowers and aloe vera plants.

Maybe a year later I remember I was again in the backyard working on something when I noticed activity on the backside of the box. I think my first thought was that the colony had gotten big enough to where they wanted to also use the back entrance I had in the box.

I went to investigate and the bees turned out to be Africanized. What a surprise. The stingless bees must not have needed that much room so there was enough left over for a small swarm of Africanized bees to move in. The stingless bees, I later learned, actually made a type of wall out of cerumen, a mixture of propolis/tree resin and wax—an effective barrier which caused the two colonies to live together but not mix together. The box was now officially a duplex.

That is how they stayed for the longest time. I remember taking honey from the Africanized colony only one time, a bit of florescent yellow honey with a greenish ting—probably from the madreado trees that grow in the valley. Excellent flavor. Otherwise hive just stayed in the backyard as a curiosity—something to watch and ponder about.

I eventually lost it, during one of the times I was back in the States working for a commercial beekeeper. Neither my wife nor I are sure about exactly what happened to it. Maybe it was ants, which would be a good guess since they can cause bees a lot of problems here in Honduras. All I know is that I came home to a box without bees.

I had the chance to really see the inside of the hive after the colonies had disappeared. The structure of the Africanized bees´ nest is similar to other honeybees. The combs are built vertically and hang from the top of the cavity. But unlike the hives beekeepers manage, the bees don´t naturally keep all the combs parallel to each other. Notice the combs in the photo that was built perpendicular to the others. 

The stingless bees, on the other hand, will build their brood comb horizontally, layered one on top of the other like a cake. Small pylons will keep them separated. The honey and pollen are stored in “pots” that the bees build around the brood areas—round balls opened on the top.­

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Tom

Also see my companion blog in Spanish, “Reflexiones Sobre Apicultura.”

 

Musings about Beekeeping, Bee Art, and Jicaro Trees

I never want to buy a t-shirt or other factory-made trinket as a souvenir when I travel. I want something a bit different, preferably made by a local artisan with local materials. These engraved “calabashes” were what I found during my last Farmer to Farmer mission to Jamaica—and the local artisan customized some for me with bees.

A local Jamaican artisan with his engraved calabashes, with fish, flowers, designs and, in my case, bees.

I was based out of a small fishing village on the north coast of Jamaica during my time there as a volunteer with this Partners of the Americas training program. This was in July 2014, my third trip to the island. Tourism is a major income source for the island but Strawberry Fields was slightly off the main tourism track. It’s a little corner of Jamaica that the main highway along the north coast bypasses.

The village has a lot of the charms of the real Jamaica. But it still had its local artisans catering to the occasional tourist. They make jewelry out of coral or coconut shells or carve drift wood into different figures. The boys at the farm where I stayed learned to weave baskets from vines.

I first saw these bowls at the little “restaurant” on the corner above the farm. I knew right away that I needed to buy one. I chose the calabash with the yellow fin tuna as my first, appropriate since we were right on the ocean. 

But in talking with this local artisan, I found out he would carve whatever I wanted onto the bowl, including bees (and a little message for my wife!). This made it even better. I ended up bringing four different ones home.

The bees are a bit “rustic” but that’s okay with me. It’s the artist’s vision of a bee. It’s one of the charms of these calabashes. 

 

Lots of the trees in Jamaica are also found in Central America, and this was not an exception with the one from which the calabashes grow. They are actually very common in the area where I live in Honduras, preferring the normally hot, dry climate of the valleys here. If there is a tree emblematic of my town, it would be this, which Hondurans call jícaro or morro (Crescentia alata).

There are two types of jícaros en Honduras—one has large fruits which are used to make a traditional bowl or guacal. The other variety has smaller fruits that are turned into cups. The fruit has a very hard outer shell, almost like wood which makes it appropriate for this. The people here in Honduras will cut them open, clean out the seeds and then scrape or sand them to a finish. 

It is very common to see these bowls and cups used in the “atoleras.” These are small roadside stands that sell a traditional Honduran corn porridge. It comes in both a sweet and sour variety. Using “guacales” is the traditional way to eat your atol.

An “atolera” along the highway to my town and its open-air kitchen. This corn porridge is eaten in the traditional “guacales” made from the fruits of the jícaro tree.

It is rather appropriate that the calabashes ended up as one of my souvenirs since the tree actually plays a part in my Honduran beekeeping—both as a nectar and pollen source for bees but also as a favored tree for capturing swarms.

As far as trees go, the jicaro is a bit different from the norm. It doesn’t have a nice tree shape. Normally it is rather twisted with the branches crossing back and forth. The leaves seem to come straight out of the branches in small groups, covering it from the beginning to the end. The flowers and fruits often grow straight out of the branches and even the main trunk.

The tree has a very strong smell when blooming. There is a hint of a grape or raisin smell to it. Most people simply say it stinks. My fifth-grade students wrinkled their nose when I asked them one day if they liked the smell. This distinct odor permeates the area around the tree. I actually like the smell, but I may be biased since it means nectar for the bees.

This is one of those trees from which I never see honey. It usually blooms right before the rains begin in June, marking the end of the honey season. If the bees make anything from it, the honey stays with them for the dearth period. One lady from the hot, dry southern part of Honduras, where the trees are even more common, said it tends to have a dark color.

The bees absolutely love these big fleshy flowers. The whole tree often sounds like it is alive with the buzzing of all the bees that usually come to work the flowers. This happens early in the morning and then again late in the late afternoon. There is very little activity during the day. The flowers seem to be so appetizing to the bees that you can also find them on the ones that have fallen to the ground.

Looking for a bit of sweetness—an Africanized honeybee and a native stingless bee on jícaro flowers. Even though the rain had knocked the majority of the mature flowers to the ground, bees still covered them, looking for something to forage.

The ground littered with jícaro flowers. There were as many bees visiting the flowers on the ground as there were with the flowers in the tree. The flowers are attractive to both Africanized honey bees and native stingless bees.

Jícaros are also a preferred place to hang trap hives in valley. I have really good success capturing swarms in them. There are certain trees that always seem to work well for hanging swarm traps. A bonus is that jícaros are often easy to climb—something necessary for a big guy like myself (as boys, my brothers were the tree climbers. Not me. Frustrating when they would taunt me from up above.) The abundance of criss-crossing branches makes this easy.

There is also an occasional swarm that I get to shake out of a jícaro.

A swarm in the jícaro tree of a local dairy farmer—this was an easy one to get down. He had an ox cart nearby which we put under the tree so I had something to stand on. No climbing this tree. I shook the bees into a cardboard box and they all marched/flew into it.

A trap hive hanging high up in a jícaro tree. Usually I hang them a bit lower but since there were cows in this pasture I decided to put it up a bit higher to avoid possible problems when a swarm arrived.

Jícaros are usually left in the pastures while other trees are eliminated. They provide some shade for the cattle but the cows also will eat the innards of the fruits when broken open. 

People also eat the little heart-shaped brown seeds, sometimes right as they are after washing and drying them. They are also the key ingredient for horchata, a traditional Honduran beverage. Water is added to ground morro seeds, rice and cinnamon. The liquid is strained out, sweetened and then further flavored with a bit of lemon rind.  You can add cacao and milk to make it a bit more special.

Occasionally my wife will make a type of trail mix, toasting morro seeds, squash seeds, grated coconut and a local version of almonds. It’s topped off with some raisins.

Morro seeds in a small bowl made from the same fruit. A ring is made from banana leaves so it doesn’t tip when set down. The seeds can be munched on raw after drying them or used as the key ingredient in horchata, a traditional Honduran beverage that is also made with rice and cinnamon.

Morro seeds in a small Honduran supermarket.

---Tom