7/13/2023

Just finished moving a swarm trap from Howard County to home. It is full of bees who are pretty upset. Originally, the plan was to move them yesterday the 12th, but severe weather keep us in for the night – mostly without power.

The last few weeks we have talked to several people who trap bees and asked them when was the best time of day to retrieve the trap leaving as few orphans as possible. The answer was at night using a red light. I am familiar with red lights having used them in the Navy, so it sounded like a good idea.

So we went to Lowe’s and purchased some red lights with a headband and thought we were set. We failed to consider that because I could use one Linda could too. We also failed to consider the effect of 90 degree heat on the disposition of the bees, as well as how rugged the terrain is. Lot’s of stuff missed.

So we get there around 10:00 pm try to make our way to the trap using red lights. Linda got a little disoriented, but otherwise good. We get to the trap, planning to shut the entrances and taking it down, but found a lot of bees on the front of the box. They weren’t quite bearding but they probably had been during the day.

Now we have to rethink our strategy. We thought that smoking them would keep the calm long enough to get the box down. So we did.

The bee really weren’t impressed by the smoke as I tried to shut the entrances. We now have as many as a hundred angry bees around us, whose mission was to get us to leave which is understandable. Despite gloves and a beekeeping jacket with a hood, Linda was stung 3 maybe 4 times. I was definitely hit 3 times, maybe more.

The trap is finally off the fence as I try to carry it back to the car. The red lights were pretty worthless. The trap weighed roughly twice than it would empty, so it was a slow process, with the real possibility of stepping in a hole and dropping the trap.

We finally made it to the car, covered the trap with a plastic bag, and headed for home. Once we were home, I rolled the trap back to the hive and called it a night, early morning, or something else.

The good news is that the trap definitely had a swarm, so now all 3 hives will be occupied.

Big lesson learned: what may work great in the spring may not be so great in the summer. Environmental conditions matter.

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