Swarm trap

[madasafish]

best of luck getting that bait hive full of bees down again
You will have had better weather down you way than up here I suspect
Even in a good year it would be the end of May before the first capped queen cell here

We are about 5 weeks behind normal.. but two hives have 5 + frames of brood due to syrup feeding and lots of willow pollen - still ongoing..(normally ends by April).
And our Victoria plum is blossoming now - so we may get some fruit - it has been frosted prior years. Crab apples is just starting to flower- usually finished by early April. No sign of May blossom at all.

Looks like a bumper crop of fruit is possible if we get a good summer (and some rain - very dry April)...

A number of DLQs and hives queenless even where losses have not been severe..

[Bumble]

Dave Cushman hinted at having designed a box or lid of some sort to use with this board. He never published details, so perhaps he did not complete it or there were problems still to be overcome. Unless someone has some information and shares it, we have a blank canvas.
The pitfall with your proposed setup could possibly be the propensity of bees to travel upwards rather than downwards. The opposite way to rain is how a rather erudite chap was once heard describing it!
Perhaps if the nuc was parallel to the hive and at the very end of the ramp i.e. 4" from the hive and the bees had no choice but to walk over the top bars it might work? Another thought is, having something to trap the queen and hold her - there would be a cluster around her which could possibly hang into the nuc.? Just thoughts - any others from anybody?

More thoughts, based on the fact that I've only ever done artificial swarms (which is meant to mimic a real swarm because it keeps the flyers with the queen) and what were effectively walkaway splits because I'm rubbish at seeing queens.

This (taranov) method separates the flying bees from the non-flying house bees, but keeps all the house bees with the queen rather than leaving them with the brood. Is that a pitfall? Would a lot of the brood be lost because these older bees are inefficient nurses?

The taranov board makes the bees walk up a ramp, so that's the 'up' bit covered. When they get to the top they either fly across the gap, which I presume has to be no less than four inches wide but wider would mean fewer bees trying to make ladders to cross it. The non-flying bees have either got to learn to fly very quickly, or they're stuck, so follow the queen who's meant to be so desperate to get out of the sunlight that she walks beneath the board and hangs onto a piece of rope. I can't see why she, and they, wouldn't be happier going into a nice little nuc that already has a frame of brood. It might look like a pitfall trap, but it's much more friendly.

The box under sounds good but in practice it is not that difficult to shake a swarm into a box. They are usually a bit "dopey" and soon settle down.

Are the bees from a shook swarm or an artificial swarm as dopey as those from a real swarm?

[Black Comb]

No, so it depends what mode they are in when under the board.

[The Drone Ranger]

We are about 5 weeks behind normal..

It's murder I'm hoping like you are for a decent Summer this year not like the wet washout we had last year

[Bumble]

I found a couple of bloggers who have used taranov boards.

One is Chris Slade, who's in Dorset http://chrissladesbeeblog.wordpress....-with-taranov/

The other is in USA, and has several posts about it - one, two and three. The last two have pictures.

[Bumble]

I did a Taranov split today. I was quite surprised that it went fairly smoothly, and the bees did what they were meant to do - almost.

I made the board from a two bits of correx, doubled up for strength, nailed onto some fence post offcuts. I nailed a bit of rough timber beneath the correx. One cloth onto the ground beneath the board to cover up the unstrimmed grass and weeds, a larger cloth over the top.

Shook and brushed all the bees of the existing frames, and waited to see what would happen. It took about an hour for them to finish sorting themselves out - the clustering bees didn't bother using the strip of wood but gathered around one of the 'legs'.

Once they'd settled I put a brood box (containing one frame of eggs/brood, a couple of frames of stores, the rest of the frames are new foundation) on top of the board - with a handy gap for them to move upwards, and went off to paint some new boxes. An hour or so later they were all inside. New brood box put onto new floor etc., fairly close to, but not in line with, the original colony. By dusk there were a few bees orientating and some bringing back pollen.

I didn't see the queen, but their behaviour suggested she had done what she is supposed to do, and had hidden beneath the board and then took the first chance to move upwards into a nice dark box.

I'm planning to combine later, but knowing my luck something will go wrong.

[Dark Bee]

Well done. Bees will move up into a box readily enough, getting them to go down into one is difficult. It sounds as if your bees were not too far from swarming. Any Q. cells? How big was the split in relation to the full colony?

[Calum]

Sounds terrible. Not in accordance with the principles of magazine bee keeping at all.
Why not just use the brood seperation method?

[The Drone Ranger]

I'm still using a cardboard box , a ladder and secateurs
Stone age

[Dark Bee]

I'm still using a cardboard box , a ladder and secateurs
Stone age

How is your flint knapping? Should be able to make quite a sharp pair of secateurs with flakes of flint.
Astone age ladder might be a trifle too heavy for comfort.