Swarm Trap Construction 

You're a natural. Just pretend you're talking to a friend that's really quiet, but a good listener.

Good video. Lighten up and have fun.

Thank you for your great information.

I just caught two swarms using your box directions! One in my carport, one on my patio. Thank you so much for your very helpful video.

I lost my sole bee hive during g a wind storm this spring. So I saw your swarm trap video and I made 3. That's what one 4 by 8 of plywood would get me. I was slow at getting them out though. One day I entered my garage to find a small number of bees on one of the traps ,while still in the garage. So I sat it just outside the garage door. I then hung a second one on a tree bout a 100 yards away. I didnt USe the 3rd. It took a couple weeks but the one on the tree is now inhabited and the one on the patio which had lookers now has permanent residents. Thanks for the video. Great trap. Greg Stephen's

I think that's the best looking swarm trap and maybe functionally the best I've ever seen love it.

Peter from Australia , I made 8 swarm boxes according to your plans , very happy with the design , see how I go this spring , good video thank you .

Very informative thanks so much I'll give it a try for sure

Thanks for the video. You were very good before the camera. Going to build some myself. Nice job.

Great video!

Thank you Mike for taking the time to share this! Plan to make a few. MUCH appreciated! God bless!

Great job. Ty for sharing. I hope to put one together tomorrow.

Very nice build.

Great design and well thought out!

Thanks for this video.I have caught 2 swarms in 2018 and have caught 2 in 2019 so far.

Very nice. I like that the area is big but only using 5 frames. Very good design. Thanks for sharing

Well done. Im 1 year into bee keeping and want to build a swarm box this winter. Thanks for posting.

Thanks for sharing...great work making those traps!!! And you made a nice presentation!!!

Great ideas I'm probably going to borrow some from you i really like the feeder lid one thank you

Thanks for posting this video. Great work.

Thank you very much for taking the time to share!

Thanks for sharing the plans! Love the font as it is so easily read by my older eyes! And the cut plan is excellent!

Beekeeper, Awesome design and finished product. You put a lot of thought into your build. I look forward to using your plans . Thank you for sharing

You are doing a great job! Keep it up !

are doing a awesome thing showing people this, you do a great job, don't change, your video is great and you present it well.

I caught my first swarm of the year in one of these on Mother’s day 2018, in TN. They’ve been swarming here since early April, but the weather has been crazy. This was my first capture this year; full box of bees too!! Thanks for the video!! I watched it last year and built 10 traps over the winter. I didn’t add the vent hole in the bottom or the feeder hole on top because I check my traps often and put them in a hive as soon as I catch them. Great design!! Thank you!!!

Excellent design.thank you!

Very good video and instructions...Thanx for posting...Nice wood shop also.

I am painting the Bott of the inside with melted wax. Put a piece of old brood comb on the inside bottom if you have it. Add a few drops of lemongrass oil. Use whatever you have. Honey bees are attracted to any of those items. Good luck catching bees!

Looks like a winner, I will give it a go this spring. No more buying bees for me. Thank you.

Thanks Mr Bee Catcher I copied your design exactly and made 6 boxes flashing lid and all. The total price per was about $40.00 ea and that includes a nail gun. I put the boxes out less than 1 week ago and my son called me this afternoon and said we have bees in one of the boxes. Also we put one at a friends house and he told us that bees have been checking it out. He didn't think that they have excepted it yet. We live in NYS and bees are swarming now. Seen several pics of swarms from locals. So when I told everyone what Iwas going to do with your direction they laughed. Guess who's laughing now. You design is a winner and I will spread the word to look at your video. Thanks again John

Thanks for your video and thoughtful design

Love to see a video showing you make the lid, bend the metal, etc...Great videos, Thank you!

Very helpful and thank you for a great video 👍

Great video, thank you for taking the time to share 💗👍

Great job great video thank you so much for sharing

Very helpful. Thank you. Others don't give dimensions or type of plywood.

thanks bee catcher great design , i fixing to build a few, thanks again.

Great Video ! I built 9 traps more traps, just caught a swarm, May 3 2017 . Northeast PA . Thanks Mike !

Amazing and well delivered content

Thanks so much. Good job.

We built a swarm box according to your specs, and just caught our first swarm (from one of our own hives)! Thanks!

great video thank you for sharing

Awesome video. Thanks.

Brilliant. I found the resource details on the club site. I will see if I can adapt the dimensions to take UK 'National' hive frames. Lots of great advice. Thanks a lot Mike.

well I'm looking for swarms and I think you're doing fine as far as the camera goes thanks for the info

Really nice great job

Good work !

Mike, very nice, clear and thoutht out. I will try your ideas., Pete

Metal top is why bees are suffocating, paint ply white. Good job on video, make more.

Great design.

Hello sir I just won't to think you I'm from the north Georgia mountains it's swarm season here now. I copied your swarm trap design I put them out two weeks ago I've already got two swarms from the same spot in three days if anyone thinks that they don't work I promise you it's a great design. I've been using hives for years and never got bees this fast in the spring. Think you sir for the help

I make and use a box a lot like that, I use a French cleat to hang mine from trees. I put one frame of old drawn comb frame and the other frames may be a combination of plastic foundation and foundationless frames. I also put a few drops of LGO, have very good luck with them sometimes catching 3 swarms on the same tree in a year. Learn the hard way not to leave them to long in the box, they will draw foundation all the way to the bottom of the box.

this is great I built one like it. Had it baited with lemon grass oil and swarm lure. 5 frames. Caught 2 swarms in 2 weeks using just one trap. Set in the same tree 6feet up.

Excellent

Do a Home Depot on line search for "Oatey test cap". All sizes come right up.

Thanks Good Jobs

I am very pleased the trap worked for you. May I ask what part of the country you are located in? It is still too cold in NE Ohio for bees to swarm.

Great video. I'm a newbie and had one Hive die, so am looking to catch a swarm... Thanks

Follow up. Touched base with you last year, I had built six boxes and we caught 3 swarms. We had hugh swarms in and hanging off the box and they also started to build comb outside the box on the bottom but they left. We set the boxes out last year about this time. So this year we build 6 more but we increased the box size from a 5 frame to 7 frame to try not to loose those big swarms. I live south of Albany NY about an hour. This year we set the boxes out in the middle of May. Don’t know what the bees do in your area but here they will start to check out the box with a few bees some almost the same day you put the box out some areas not for Some weeks. Then they will come with more maybe 50 then even more this could take some weeks. They keep checking it out. Here we put the boxes in general on a hedge row facing a field and south east to south on a large tree oat, cottonwood, maple about 10 feet up. Every week we freshen up with lemon grass oil. So we have 12 boxes out and here right now bees are swarming heavy. We have bees checking out 6 boxes light to heavy. We don’t foul with the box until we see pollen going in. The new seven frame boxes have bees looking at them. I am getting long winded but thought some may be interested. Thanks Bee Catcher these boxes are the real deal woul highly recommend to any one.

As of Feb 27 there is a (PDF) with additional details of use and construction available with the following downloadable link: drive.google.com/file/d/1xYAdy7TKH9Q5SVErDdkGBucC4FvUcaWT/view?usp=sharing

Northern Kentucky here. I plan on making around 6 traps and giving it a go.. ty for sharing.. Do you think 6 is enough to start with or do i need like 10 to 15 . Id like to catch like four swarms this yr. I have many great locations i will be able to put these on. Around orchards ect ect..

Thank you very much for all the info!!! Is the comb real important to add inside the box??

Those 2" an 3" knockouts do fit tight. I had to sand the inside of the holes a little to make them fit. For the vent holes near the top on the ends I used white plastic insulation plugs that fit nicely into a 1" hole. I then drill a few(about 8) 7/64 holes in the plugs for ventilation. No need for screen doing it that way. What you did will work fine if you sand the holes out a little. Good luck.

Mike, I built a few more of your boxes today. I came up with a very quick fix for when the PVC knockouts are too tight a fit . To see what I did ust put 2z-MWLLTLJc into the youtube search box and my vid will come up . My description lists the part number for the bit I used. I like your design and thanks for posting a video of it.

nice , thanx

Hi Mike, Caught another swarm using your bait box. They did not want to go in the front door, however, so we had to do lots of scooping and dumping! I'd like to post a photo for you but not sure I can...

No swarms in NE Ohio. Not sure where swarms would come from since bee losses in this area were very high. I lost more hives in April than I did all winter. Last year on this date there were at least ten swarms that we witnessed nearby. Hope it starts soon. I love swarm season. Keep the swarm traps out and keep an eye on them.

Fantastic video! I took down a few notes. I don't suppose you have the plans online anywhere.

I don't like to paint them. I prefer to let them gray from the weather. I have used some of the traps 4 or 5 yrs and they are still good. Here is a good article that points out disadvantages of painting: horizontalhive.com/honeybee-swarm-trap/bait-hive-how-to-catch.shtml

For the two vents on the sides I bought 2" pvc knockouts ...I used a 2" holesaw , stapled all the screens on . wada you know , the knockouts won't go in ! Did you use a larger hole saw to cut the holes ? Since I have an interference fit , i'm gona have to stick all these in my mill now and enlarge the hole about 1/32 . So FYI to anyone making one of these , drill a test cut with the hole saw, take the test hole to Lowes/HomeDepo and make sure the knockouts will fit ...otherwise you'll have a problem like me . Thanks for posting the video . Fyi: I ended black taping the razor out of a utility knife to the side of the hole saw , and VERY carefully widened the hole just a bit. Takes just a few passes and you get a snug fit with the knock outs .

I built three like yours. But I don't have any brood comb to put in the bottom. I am going to wax the bottom and use the lemongrass oil. Do you ever not use the brood comb.

I used wood that I had on hand but didn't have any treated wood for the bottom. Will regular wood do ok. Do you stain your boxes?

Regarding entrance, why did you choose the two holes side by side? Ive used 1 hole @ 1.25 inch on my traps. The research shows the type of entrance doesn’t matter as long as it equals about 2 square inches. I just built 42 traps based on this 5 frame design for the spring. Mine are 43 liters.

Is the body centered on the bottom? I see the bottom is a little wider then the sides and longer then the front and back. Great video

thanks for sharing. In Pittsburgh and will try to catch swarm rather than buy nuc.

I would order one of your boxes on Amazon if it was available. I don't have the time to do the wood work nor do I have a workshop, but I am very interested in catching swarms. I live in Europe...but like I said, I would gladly buy a couple of your boxes with the frames and the oil as a Bee Catcher Kit.

Wow, senator John McCain is a bee catcher. Pretty cool

Actually that is a great question. I don't have any crops near me that are sprayed. Our honey is mostly from wild flowers. Your question is tough for me to answer because I would not like my hives to be near crops that were spayed with pesticides. I would trap bees in a location like that and move them to a healthier permanent location. I hope someone else can give you a better answer. Thanks for the great question!

Does matter what color you paint them?

Have you played around with putting 5 more frames in the bottom? Or do they prefer the empty space? Lastly, what other entrance holes have you tried before using this "double barrel" style opening?

Do you have a video showing how you made flashing removable top. Thanks.

i have the flower pot type but prefer your type trap, it will last lot longer than the paper mache type no doubt

Just finished building this off your plan - Thank you. Question on the small side vents. Is there any reason you did not just drill small hole instead of using the small vent plug and drilling them? Or drilling a larger hole and putting 1/8 screen on the inside? What size are the small vent holes?

Hi mike, your swarm catchers look really well made, when i was learning about bees one of the first things i was taught was the different ways to place panels in a hive, the warm way and the cold way. Through lots of testing and study(before my time) it was found that having the panels crossways to the entrance(cold way) was not near as successful as having them in line with the entrance(warm way) apparently in a tree or natural space the bees move into they start to build the panels the warm way, ie in line with the entrance. Your swarm boxes are in theory the cold way, have you ever tried building them with the entrance at either end to convert them to the warm way to see if they work any better? just curious. thanks.

how do i get one of those boxes from you ?

Great video!!! 10 swarms! wow! Thank you for sharing your design with the rest of us! Videos like this answer a lot of questions for us new bee keepers. I just got my first table saw this month, and built 4 x 5-frame deep nucs www.beesource.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/5framenuc_coates.pdf. And thanks to your video, now I know how modify them and reuse them as swarm traps! I can stack 2 nucs and strap them together to accomplish your configuration. All I have to do now is make add the vent and latch mods. Those are great design features! I plan to do spring splits, and place a swarm trap or two as well. That bottom hole would be great for Oxalic Acid Vaporizing, or a place to put a MAQS strip (just create a gap to put the strip by inverting the bottom cap). That way there'd be no need to open the hive at all. So here's a brain teaser project for you if you're up for the challenge: Create and post a multipurpose coates nuc design (pdf) that can be used as (1) a nuc, (2) swarm trap, and (3) bee vac (like this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cVcb35K1hr8.html ). That's all a bee keeper would ever need, right? :) Happy Trapping! ...Don...

do theyserve as a permanent be hive?

Mike, I might have missed you saying this in the video but are you using screws or brads for assembly? Any issues? Your swarm catching videos are amazing. Thanks for explaining things the way you do.

Is it ok to put them on the edge of a field that will be farmed or will the pesticides from the field effect the health of the bees? Is this a dumb question?

do you have all of the dimensions of the telescoping lid?

do you paint the outside of the trap, or leave the wood bare (only the outside)?

How do you clamp the lid down to the box to ensure it stays tight and doesn't fall off?

I only use medium frames. Can I use mediums in this trap?

Can you tell me how far up and and over do you drill the entrance holes thanks Jason

im in central pa

What distance from bottom and side do you drill entrance holes?

I don’t see the dimensions for the lid? Can someone help. Trying to make a cut list before starting to save material. Thanks.

Hi B.C., I'm in southern Ohio, I've two hive, one older, one new from a swarm I caught when my older one swarmed. I have 3 traps out of a different design, design is smaller than yours. Early, before my bees swarmed, I noticed scouts flying around my traps, entering and all, but I caught the swarm before any moved in. Just checked again today, cold here and has been rainy, so did not suspect or see any scout bees. My question is, do you paint your boxes? I see on RU-vid many folks do, mine are not painted but are made of old plywood that might have old paint on them. I did rub beeswax on them, inside and out. I do plan on making a few more swarm traps closer to your design before another year. Just wondering about painting or leaving more natural color.

Hey Bee Catcher Cant find the 3" knockout ring any where> Is there a special name for it Thanks