Swarm trapping bees

No, have 5 on our 1600 acre and I've moved them around with no luck for a few years. I've had to actually open the top and shake the bees down into the swarm box every time or locate the queen and trap her inside for a few hours. We have tried everything short of that. I've placed them right under or beside swarms with zero luck, Sunday we rode up on a swarm we went and grabbed a trap, spread some fresh honey on and in it and left to go fish the creek, came back 2 hours later and nothing. They had cleaned up the honey and left. Ran to the barn and grabbed a hive base and shook them down into it. They stayed, went back this week before the rain and put a super on it. Looks like they are happy. But if these swarm traps don't catch again this season I'm gonna sale them or reconstruct them for a hive. Just fyi we have 11 total hives on the property, we usually can catch about 5-6 swarms a year and sale the hive. if you check your hives ever couple days with a drive by for the next month to 6 weeks you'll catch when they are about to swarm.

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I try to put a frame of old dark brood comb in my trap

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This is how my Pops taught me. We are trying to get back into bees this year. We ran 40 hives when I was younger. Might try to get whole hives instead of nucs this year. Lost all 5 of my nucs three years ago.

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There are quite a few beekeepers around northwest Louisiana. I find it pretty interesting and for the most part relaxing. I’ll put swarms in nuc boxes for a resource hives. It’s good to have an extra queen or a few frames of brood or even letting them drawn out comb.

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Oh for sure. There's a large beekeeping company around me that has over 1,000 hives. They take a couple of semi trucks to california for the almonds. I've never seen them or heard of them. My dad just knows of them.

What I meant, is that if you have a beekeeper with 10+ hives within 1 mile I think your chances of catching a swarm trap is a lot higher. But many of them you would never know about.

My dad has 30-50 hives and he keeps them in 4-5 different locations. Some places have 3-5, some have 15. I think half the swarms he catches are his own bees....

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I think half the swarms he catches are his own bees....

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it’s not the bees it’s the queen. Bees swarm when (typically) a hive gets too crowded and a new queen is reared. Some of the bees go with the old queen. The worker bees are disposable

So there’s a new queen in the original hive and a the old queen with the swarm. Since the old queen is the center of the swarm it would be impossible for your dad to not catch his own bees if the swarm is close by

30-50 hives probably keep him busy through the honey pull. My friends dad has close to 100 but is getting out due to health issues at 85 years old. He makes pretty good money selling honey.