1. First and foremost, place it where swarms have landed before.
2. Place it in lone trees that would be used for navigation landmarks.
3. Place it on tree lines or fence lines and preferably in shade.
4. Place it where you won’t kill yourself retrieving it (this includes placing it away from larges thickets of poison ivy…)

Reader Comments

  1. Mike

    I’m new to setting out swarm traps this year was my first. one of traps yesterday had about 25 bees working all day long in and out till about dark. The next day only seen as many. Do scouts do this or may did i do something wrong with my trap. Thanks Mike

  2. Jones Tyler

    I would not take the fact that scouts were checking it out (and maybe didn’t choose it) as meaning you have done something wrong. To begin with, I do not consider myself an expert on swarm traps. I have had successes and lots of “misses” (or traps that never caught anything). I can tell you that I once had a trap in a certain location, facing a certain direction, for 2 years and never had a hit. The tree was hit in a storm, so I moved it about 120 yards away and caught a swarm in it the very next Spring. This still didn’t provide me with any solid conclusions, except that a certain bee found the trap that year and thought it would make a wonderful home (and, that gal apparently knew how to dance for her mates to convince them as well!)

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