This was taken two or three days later if I remember correctly. I had no option but to move the trap hive directly to the apiary. The trap hive was hanging in this tree-just about 300 yards from the permanent yard. Here’s a photo of some of these lost bees. As it dries out and the bees start to finally leave, some of them will do a new orientation. If you do have to move the bees in one shot, stuff the entrance with some grass. The problem is that you may need quite a few nights to get the swarm to where you want it. All the bees will find their way back to the hive when it stays this close. You could also make a bunch of small moves (maybe six feet every other night) until they finally get to their permanent location. I will then take it back and leave it in its permanent location without losing foragers. This will mess up their orientation of where they were originally caught. If possible I bring the new bees back to my house (which is at least two miles away) and leave it in my back yard for about two weeks. I usually do hang swarm traps in the area of my apiaries-within three hundred yards. But this might also just be a characteristic of my africanized bees which are more jittery about things anyways. I like to wait at least a week, or two, before taking them down from the tree. The bees take off if they are not established enough inside the bait box. But I then sometimes have the problem of losing the swarm. So moving the trap hive as soon as possible might be better in this respect-get them moved before they are fully oriented where the trap hive was set/hung. Two weeks later I have still seen some lost bees hanging out on the tree where I had the swarm trap hanging. I try to not make these short moves but at times there really is no other option. These lost bees could be a bit of a nuisance-wanting to buzz around your head or even sting. The next day after the move you may see a ball of bees hanging out in the old location. A lot of the foragers will orient themselves back to where the bait box was hanging originally-they don’t realize that the hive is in a new location when they leave to work the flowers the following morning. If you have the trap hive fairly close to where you have the apiary, you will probably lose some of the bees in making the move. The bigger rush might be to get the bait box (or the bird house) moved to where it will be kept permanently. Some of my last swarms that I catch before the rainy season begins (the dearth period here) will stay in the trap hive for five or six months until the flowers begin again and the hive starts to grow and finally outgrow the bait box. I´ve let some swarms go three or four weeks in the bait box before I moved them into the permanent box. As long as the swarm has room to build comb inside the bait hive, there isn´t a real rush to get it moved into the permanent box.
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