#8- How to transfer a wild honey bee swarm out of a swarm trap. 

Some strains seem to be more aggressive than others. They can also be more aggressive depending on the season. It seems that they tend to be worse just coming out of winter as they are low on honey and are a little more desperate to protect it. In this video, they really weren't too bad. When I first see activity in front of a hive, it is usually scout bees coming in to investigate the space. If they find it suitable, they will go back to the hive to get the others. I usually wait until I can see them moving inside the hive at night (assuming I missed the big swarm event). Once I see them moving in the hive at night, I like to give them a couple of days to get established and that's when I transport them.

Well, typically the recommendation for a swarm trap is that it is best to have them facing a field and around 10-15 feet up in the air. As most hive boxes are assembled in multiple pieces and become quite heavy once a swarm moves in, it would be very difficult to climb a tree or ladder as well as attempt to pull the 50-100 lb hive out of the tree. Furthermore, as swarm traps have to be moved at night (because that is when all your bees move into a hive), it is a little more difficult to do all this in the dark while also attempting to occlude the hive entrance in order to prevent the bees from coming out in transit. Granted, I am new to all of this to be sure, but these may be the reasons that the vast majority of the industry uses smaller boxes with fewer frames for trapping. Thank you for the recommendation!