News From the Hive: The Trap-Out…A Sarasota Honey Company Specialty.

What is a “Trap-Out”? The trap-out works by allowing the bees out of wherever they’ve chosen to nest, but not allowing them to get back.

A wire cone is placed over the entrance so they can crawl along it and out of the open end. At the end of the cone we place a mini hive box with baby bees. The bees wiil be able fly off to forage from the original hive and when they return they will not understand why they cannot re-enter. As night approaches, bees will all go inside the new hive.

If they had only been in the tree for a few days, the process maybe done within 3 or 4 days. Unfortunately if has been almost two weeks or more, the bees may have built comb and the queen has probably started laying. In that case it takes a lot longer, maybe 3 or 6 weeks. Once the queen realizes no foragers are returning to the hive she stops laying. We need to continue the process until all of the brood (baby bees) has hatched and emerged. It is our hope that the queen will panic and join the new hive. Once it is determine most of the hive has relocated to the new hive, we remove the new hive from your property and introduce it to our Bee Sanctuary.