How to use bee traps or trap-outs to remove honeybees

Trap-out method of bee removal

The trap out method is a method to remove bees from a void space without removing any building fabric or having the need to do any building reinstatement works.

What you are essentially doing is creating a trap that allows the bees to come out of that void space but doesn’t allow them to go back in. This can be quite effective at reducing the number of bees that are within that void space. This method is carried out with the use of a nucleus box which the bee removal specialist would hope that those bees would then re-colonise in, rather than the void space.

The wide end of a cone would be put on the entry/exit point of the hive and the point of the cone would go into the nucleus box. When bees leave the hive, foraging bees, for example, would go out of the exit point and go into the box but wouldn’t be able to re-access the hive.  

Problems:

1. The trap-out method doesn’t remove an established hive or honeycomb that is within that void space. You will get a box full of bees that can be taken away but there will still be comb, residue, and smell. The root of the problem hasn’t been dealt with.
2. This method is often time-consuming. The box can be left for weeks and sometimes months.
3. People that do this type of work hope that the queen will come out of the established colony and into that trap-out box. If the queen leaves the hive the rest of the colony is likely to follow her. This does happen but only in rare cases. The queen usually stays within the hive because that is where she wants to be. It’s where she is laying eggs and where she is being looked after.
4. Bees are quite clever and often find another exit or entry point in and out of the building. There are often loads of gaps and crevices, in roof tiles, walls or where pipes come out, for example, where they can find another access point into there.

The trap-out method is an option to reduce the number of bees within that wall space but is not an ideal solution to getting all the bees removed from a property.

A customer tried this method before calling Beegone. The bees were in the roofspace of the property and had found another six entry points into that colony which they later realised was much bigger than what they had anticipated. The honeycomb stretched right the way along to the other side of the roof space. The nucleus box they had used was only full of a few foraging bees.

A cut-out was needed in this case which comprised of removing building fabric to access the colony. The honeycomb was cut out and all the bees and the queen removed and rehomed.