On May 13th, Grant Gillard posed the following question:

>Any of you use swarm traps with pheremone lures to catch swarms?
>
>I was curious how you go about do this and how your luck has run.


    I held off on responding in hopes others would provide input.  The
following readily available items might prove useful in that regard:

Schmidt & Thoenes.  1990.  The efficiency of swarm traps.  What
percent of swarms are captured and at what distance from the hive.
AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.  130:811 (December issue).

Wenner & Thorp.  1993.  Swarm choice: Survey hives or natural
cavities.  AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 133:870 (December issue).

Wenner & Schmidt.  1995.  Effectiveness of small swarm hives.
AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.  135:832 (December issue).

    In the last decade and a half, I have had more than 80 swarms
occupy swarm hives baited with an artificial lure and thus have a
some insight about relative success in hive placement.

1)  Justin Schmidt and Steve Thoenes developed the practical model we
now use. They advocated placing the hives about 9' above ground.  In
a natural setting, that is not always possible.  Swarm hives only 5'
high have been successful.

2)  Swarm hives in canyon bottoms and ridge tops rarely became
occupied.  We feel that is due to the problem of the odor travelling
downwind and becoming inaccessible to searching recruits.

3)  Another person reported to me that placing the hive entrance
downwind proved more successful than when entrances were placed in
other directions.

4)  In some cases, lures apparently proved effective more than a year
after installation.

5)  Swarm hives proved about equally effectively at becoming occupied
as did natural cavities that had formerly had colonies in them (1993
reference, above).

    I hope the above information proves valuable.

                                                                Adrian


--
Adrian M. Wenner                (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road                 [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA  93103        www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm

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*    "We not only believe what we see:
*  to some extent we see what we believe."
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*                           Richard Gregory (1970)
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