This is my third year of extensive use of bait hives, all of which are
five frame boxes placed in trees.  At all times, I used deep frames, one
or more of which was used, the rest being undrawn foundation.  This year
only, I used pheromone lures, both to try them out and also because used
frames were in short supply (all my hives wintered successfully).
At this point, these are my observations:

When the bait hive contained a brood frame with residual honey, there
was extensive early interest as the honey was robbed.  But after the
honey was gone, there was constant interest in the hive the rest of the
year.

When the hive contained a brood frame with no honey and a pheromone
lure, there was quick interest but it dissipated within days and, for
the remainder of the season, there has been no interest in these hives.

Of the five bait hives I have up this year, all with pheromones, the
only swarms taken were in the two boxes that contained a frame with
residual honey.  This is much less success than in previous years.

Burns (Pennsylvania)