Tree Trap-out Question! Seeking advice and ideas

[Lina Verchery]

Hey beeks!

I’m helping someone try to rescue a colony of bees from a tree that was recently cut down (maybe some of you saw her post yesterday on the BABA facebook group!) and looking for advice from the BABA “hive mind”. 

This was an enormous tree (maybe 5-6’ diameter) and the portion of hollow trunk where the bees were living (see pic) is currently buried under an unstable pile of other large trunk pieces, so a cut-out doesn't quite seem feasible or safe at the moment.

I placed a couple bait boxes nearby with empty comb, honey, and lemongrass oil in case they abscond. The bees found one of the boxes, but does anyone have ideas on how to get them to actually *move* into the box, rather than just rob it out and return to their downed tree? 

I don’t have a Hogan bee trap, but wondering if anyone here has ever experimented with using hardware cloth to make a cone-shaped bee escape for a trap-out? Has anyone actually tried the trap-out method? (I’m skeptical…) 

Very curious to hear anybody’s ideas…. it’s a longshot but would be nice to get this colony to relocate before the arborists pass them through the wood-chipper! 😱

Thanks, all

Lina