Dr.Phil's Prescription always works.

[Sung Han Lee]

I have been using Dr.Phil's (our swarm trap specialist Phil Stob) swarm trap formular since i learned years ago.

Feb. 14 on Valentines day i stopped by to quick check on my client's hives.

There was a one hive left as a  bait hive. A deep box, Regular formular- old frames, foundation less frames in the middle. No lemon grass oil thou. Something caught my eyes that bees were going in out of the front entrance of the bait box. I opened the cover witbout any expectation. There were bees but not just small amount it was filled entire deep box i would say at least 8 to 9 frame worth.

This happens every year. So i went back in between waiting for rain to calm down. The purpose was replace foundation less frames with wet drawn combed frames plus one half way crystallized honey frame that i uncapped completely. It weighs over 6 pounds. Furthermore,  i added comb honey super with queen excluder.  It is a shallow box with wax foundation.

There are ton of young workers that will build combs and store honey fast. Last year it took only three weeks completely finished entire comb honey shallow super. Because of according to  our meteologist Charles Carlson it will be rainy next few days. For that reason i supplied a honey frame for them to supply of food plus help to repair and build new combs.

You don't need an appointment for Dr. Phil's prescription. 

Keep you posted.

Sung Lee The Bee Charmer 

[Sung Han Lee]

Forgot to add photo.

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[YDK]

Agree! I had good luck with swarms traps prepared as per Phil's instructions. 

One quick question about this statement - The purpose was replace foundation less frames with wet drawn combed frames. Is it recommended to replace empty frames like this? Is that mainly to maximize honey production? I just don't have many unused drawn comb frames as a hobby beekeeper, so I let newly moved-in bees build the comb. 

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[Sung Han Lee]

Yes it is totally up to you.

They will build new combs no question about that.

I usually provide with drawn comb frames. It will settle down faster and i see eggs within as fast as a couple of days to in a few days for sure. And i have nothing but  frames. I used scrap combs to press machine to collect every single drop of honey. I was so proud of amount of honey i squeezed. Later i was finding out that how much of honey and nectar to build combs for each frame. Minimum 2 to 3 pound of resources. Meaning they have to consume minimum 20 pound of honey and nectar to build in a 10 midium frames. So i changed the game to extract the honey instead of scraping. Something to think about.

Also next few days is gonna be atmospheric river that continues rain for a few days. They will not be able to fly as much as they would like to collect nectar to build combs. Having at least 6 pound worth of honey will help them settle down and feed.

Also added a super for comb honey. They need to build combs to store honey. Again not being able to fly it will slow down. 

Many cases when i catch a swarm i usually give a pint of sugar syrup to jump start. 

Again you don't have to. But i do.

I am a slave driver.

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[YDK]

Thank you for the detailed explanation and the tip about using sugar syrup. 

Best,

YDK

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[Gerald Przybylski]

As Phil said, you can move a swarm in a bait-box  the evening/night they move into it, before they orient.
If they have oriented to the location, move the hive a foot or so a day until you get them where you want them in the yard, 
or move them 2 or 3 miles away for a week. 

As Phil said, the queen (and the bees) don't seem to favor the old smelly comb that might have lured scouts in the first place.  Pathogens? Icky? Cells too small? Too hard to work? 
They seem to prefer light brown or brand new comb (they may just have built) 
So I suspect that Sung removed the oldest frame(s).  

Since Sung appears to have an inventory of drawn comb he chooses to replace any foundationless frames with them.  (The foundationless frames were in the bait-hive to signal plenty-of-space-here.)
One wishing to employ swarms to draw out comb (as part of the old comb recycling plan) will leave the foundationless (or undrawn) frames with the swarm,  and feed the swarm to improve production.
(If putting in drawn foundationless frames, make sure they are mostly worker-size cells, rather than honey storage or drone size cells. )
(A frame with some open brood will help anchor the colony) 
(check the newly drawn comb every couple of days, and correct mistakes before they have a chance to really screw things up.  
With plastic foundation, they sometimes start drawing comb perpendicular to the foundation. 
With foundationless frames, they may veer away from the center line of the frame, or start planes off of some other edge. Straighten them out. )

that's my 2¢

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