Swarm Traps and Bait Hives: The easy way to get bees for free.

This book is very short, but that's just because the author opted to write clearly rather than padding the text with extraneous wordage. A lot of the same information is found in the (also excellent) Honeybee Democracy, but that book requires concerted effort to get through, while Swarm Traps and Bait Hives can easily be read in an hour.I'd only add a few caveats (beyond the price, which is hard to get around with print-on-demand paperbacks). First, the author experimented in Texas, so those of us living in cooler climates might find that bait traps work as well or better in the sun as in the shade. (I don't know if that's true, but worth a try.) Also, he's writing entirely for Langstroth-style beekeepers, but you can easily tweak the design of the bait hive to incorporate top bars for vertical (warre) or horizontal top bar hives. Finally, another experimenter cautioned to rehome your bees within a couple of days if you're using swarm traps close to your apiary --- otherwise, the bees will keep trying to go back to the swarm box location (just like any other time you move a colony --- ten feet or ten miles being the exception).Those few caveats aside, this little book was inspiring and I've already built my first swarm trap. Let's hope I catch some swarms!

This is a quick read with what appear to be all the basics (I've never trapped bees). My purchased bees made it ~10 months, but ran out of food late into the winter, and were then marauded when I fed them (by that point, they were too weak to defend the hive). I've decided to try to catch some bees, and Taylor's YouTube videos and this book reference popped up several times. I'm also in Texas, so I thought his thoughts would be good for me.The only improvement I would suggest is for Taylor to include some plans/drawings of the traps. I think I have all I need to know from the descriptions, but I think drawings would be useful.GUTS is key, so we'll see.

Read this book a couple times. Followed the suggestions and caught my first swarm this week in Chico, California at my own house. I used the cheapest 8 frame hives Dadant offered made my own top and bottom out of scrap pallet wood. Drilled a hole stapled hardware cloth in front of it and sprayed swarm commander near the entrance and some of the frames. A friend of mine who is a commercial beekeeper was going through his stuff and gave me 3 frames of drawn comb. I put one in each of the 3 bait hives I built captured swarm in bait hive sitting on chair and hadn't even finished building the hanging piece to put in trees. This stuff works and the book already paid for itself in my opinion.

I have kept bees almost 4 decades and did not know that the size of a swarm trap was important. I did not know that the first swarm a hive issues each Spring is, likely, a prize swarm--a healthy swarm and tending to combat Varroa, handle SMH, and have good foraging behaviors. I also learned about fence lines, and tree lines, and big trees out in a field alone. You should read to learn why that knowledge is important if you're going to try the craft of swarm trapping. This is a great read.

It actually worked! Being a beginning beekeeper I purchased this book hoping to acquire a swarm. I constructed a Warre hive in the spring after doing a considerable amount of research. I decided to take three of the Warre hive boxes and modified them to add a bottom and roof with a hanging rod. Now that I have captured a swarm I plan the remove the bottom and roof and add the box to the top of the hive, thereby disturbing the bees as little as possible. It is the end of July here, and I just found the swarm. I put out three boxes using the lemon grass oil. I started beekeeping to help with pollinating our garden and fruit orchard. Looking forward to learning more about beekeeping.

I've been a beekeeper for over 10 years and have never considered luring a swarm. I've caught a couple of swarms. I'm going to try this year. Bee packages are expensive. A lot of practical information and ideas.

Quick read, great basis in repeated successes by the author. Taylor's method puts the new trapper on the right path, especially if you don't have the time or desire to check traps twice a week. Well worth the cost and time if you're starting out trapping swarms I think.One request - I would like a measured drawing of the frame support, the internals of the trap. The exterior can vary a lot but it seems the internal structure that sop pets the frames is critical.

The information in this book is fairly good, I'll grant that. Unfortunately, it is almost all freely available on the Internet from other sources.The author does a poor job of citing studies that support what he is saying, and a worse job of pointing the reader to additional resources. Most of the information in this book can be gleaned from the book Honeybee Democracy, which is an engaging read packed with far more information for only a few dollars more. Between reading that book, and spending a few hours on the Beesource forums (do an Internet search if you don't know what I'm talking about), I didn't really learn anything at all from this book.Given that the book is only 50 pages of easily available information-and probably could have fit into 25 pages if there wasn't such huge top and bottom margins, liberal use of whitespace, large headings, and so on ("Chapter" 4 is notable in that it is fewer than 75 words and takes an entire page)-I am hard-pressed to determine where the value for money is in this book.

Told me very little I didn't already know.

This book is great and nice and easy to read

Very good and helpful

Für die 15€ bekommt man ein 50 Seiten "starkes" Heftchen. Der Informationsgehalt ist überschaubar aber dafür mit recht vielen farbigen Bildern aufgehübscht. Ein Imker erfährt hier nicht viel neues. Wie und wo ich eine Kiste/Box aufhänge und wie ich diese vorher Kostengünstig selber herstelle weiß der Mann vom Fach (ja die Frau auch) selber. Wann Schwarmzeit ist auch. Rechtliches ist im Buch unerheblich da der Autor aus den USA kommt und hier andere Gesetze gelten. Auch der Tipp sich den Standort der Schwarmfangkiste mittel GPS Koordinate zu sichern lässt mich Schmunzeln. Die wenigsten von uns stellen zig Hunderte von Kisten auf und der Standort dürfte auch so leicht wiederzufinden sein. Aber gut gemeint ist es halt.Fazit: Einen Schwarm auf einfache Art und Weise mittels aufgehängter Schwarmfangkiste zu fangen anstatt auf der obersten Sprosse der Leiter mit Wassersprüchflasche in der einen Hand und Kiste in der anderen zu balancieren dürfte wohl der Traum eines jeden Imkers sein. Ich werde es nächstes Jahr versuchen aber die Information die man kostenlos im Internet bekommt reichen alle mal aus, so das man sich eigentlich die 15€ für das Buch sparen kann oder besser sogar sollte. Sorry lieber Autor.

McCartney Taylor is a good teacher, at least regarding beekeeping - I suspect he has other varied interests and is probably just as good there - so I was happy to see that his friendly, casual style of educating carried over from his website http://learningbeekeeping.com/ and countless YouTube videos to this book.He explains the whys and wherefores of his methods for building bait hives and catching swarms in a humorous yet useful fashion and without assuming you know everything nor that the reader is "simple". He steers you to the more economical methods of setting your traps up and basically gives your the education needed to carry on on your own, which is all you can ask for.Thanks McCartney, hope to see lots of new info from you as I delve deeper into beekeeping.