Funneling Bees Into A Hive

[Jen]

I'm helping a friend set up his first hive. His neighbor has bees coming and going in an outdoor faucet and said that he will funnel the bees into the hive, and that it would take about 2 weeks. The queen will stay behind and die. Then, my friend will buy a new queen?

[CpnObvious]

Would "funneling out" be another way to refer to a trap out where a mesh cone is used?  I would assume the would then need to order a queen.

An outdoor faucet referring to a hand-pump well faucet?  That must be kind of neat to see them coming and going from!

[Jen]

I have no idea what kind of faucet it is. What I don't understand is why it's going to take two weeks to get the colony into the hive box. Why would the bees leave brood and the queen behind? I think I need more details about this event. Just don't know what funneling is

[Beeboy]

Do you mean soffit Jen?

Sent from my SCH-R970 using Tapatalk

[Jen]

Awe Bee- Now ya got me thinkin'.......

No, I think he meant faucet, because he went right up to it and got four bees for self stinging, they were outdoors in the yard.

I need to get more info.

[Riverrat]

you set up a trap out. Which looks a lot like a funnel or a cone made of screen or hardware mesh. You leave one end open about the size of a pencil so a bee can get out. The other end will go over the opening where the bees come and go. trick is the bees cant have a way to get back inside where they exit the hive at the big end of the cone. The bees can get out to go forage and later to orientate  through the small end but cant get back in the small end of the cone. If they find a way back in it will be hard to stop them after that.  A store bought funnel will not work they can get back into the small end. It has to be see through to confuse the bees. Once set up put a nuc box with frames set up next to the original opening. The bees that cant get back in will go into the nuc box. after a few days add a frame of brood with eggs and let them start a new queen. As the bees come out to orientate to the hive they cant get back in eventually all the brood hatches and comes out of the hive not knowing they cant get back in.  The queen will slow down and stop laying since there is no nectar or pollen coming into the hive.  Some say the queen will come out. I personally haven't seen it happen. If its a good strong hive you sometimes can get several nucs doing a trap out by switching out nuc boxes as they become full of bees repeating with a frame of eggs or you can introduce a purchased queen. It takes about 30 days to complete the process. Once the bees are gone I have opened the cone up and let them rob out the honey left in the original hive before removing. Make sure you seal up the old opening when done or theres a good chance someday a swarm will find it suitable for a new home.  Iddee is the Guru on trap outs he can add to this.

[Jen]

Old fashioned funnel trap out ~

[riverbee]

jen, iddee is the master at these and has a number of tutorial posts on trap outs:

How to do a trap out

Materials for a trapout

Setting up a trapout

After Setting Trapout

[Bsweet]

Take longer than two weeks and there wil have to be brood in the new hive to hold the bees, if there are eggs in the brood frame they may well make a queen before all the unwanted bees are gone. Read the post on trap outs. Jim