okay so we had a terrible winter and wouldn't you know it it goes from 39
degrees the very next day it jumps right up to the high 50s and low 60s and look
at this beehive this hive looked like it wasn't doing anything at all but you
know what there's an abundance of bees inside and the brood was hatching and
the numbers are up and the next thing you know right out of the blue
beekeepers are going to be caught off guard right and left and their bees are
gonna swarm and when you see the behavior of this colony it is bustling
and what could happen at any moment is they'll zip out of there and they'll be
replacing the Queen so this is a time of year to be looking for Queen cells and
to look for a population explosion in your colonies coming out of winter and
look at this right here this is called a swarm trooper this is a swarm trap now
these are new this year for me I'm trying them out I've put a few
together and I'm gonna put one together for you today in this video we're gonna
go step by step they came up with the dimensions of this based on Cornell's
Department of Ornithology I don't know if you've read the book the honeybee
democracy but they did a lot of testing on what bees are looking for when it
comes to a swarm trap and it deals a lot with the physical dimensional interior
space and the swarm trooper copies that exactly so it seems like a pretty good
deal I mean if you're hauling wooden boxes up and putting them along the tree
line normally about twelve feet up then now they can be pretty heavy so this
thing is a relief as light weight as it is this is just a sign marking their
parameters of my bee yard my backyard apiary here in the state of Pennsylvania
northeastern United States and the swarm troopers I purchased from the blithe
would be company blithe would be company calm you can also get them off of Amazon
and step by step here it comes with this painters tape these blue pieces and you
want to leave those because we're going to use them later it also comes with
swarm commander premium swarm lures you get three doses in there each one's good
for a little over a week so once you're in prime swarm season and you put that
box out you're gonna trap that swarm you want to put a little of that on there it
comes with two straps and this is also how the box
it's held together and then suspended in a tree the way I showed you earlier so
I'm gonna walk you through step by step these are the instructions that come
with it it shows you that we're gonna put together the top and it comes from
Millers manufacturing Anderson South Carolina beetle jail is the email
address of gmail.com and you even get a sticker here swarm trooper Bob is tie in
there too you know Star Wars anyway these are the components it is mostly
cardboard and the exterior is that type of corrugated material that's normally
used for campaign signs and things like that so it is weatherproof this is much
more durable than originally thought it would be and again things are clearly
marked see how this is identified is for the inside it also has vents built into
it screens so that when you do have a swarm in there and you're gonna
transport this thing you can open the vents up on the sides close up the
entrance at the bottom and then you've got a transport kit too so this thing is
pretty handy overall I have a number of them but I thought it would be
worthwhile to show you how to put it together so that you can have some of
these on your shelf and ready to go this spring it inevitably happens that people
get caught off guard and swarms take off if you've got a neighboring beekeeper
you want to get some freebies swarm trooper assembly instructions right here
now this is the tape there's just painters tape that comes with it and you
can use this to hold the pieces together while you assemble it these are the
interior components to frame rests top cover and it also has a hole for a
feeder the feeder does not come with it but it has the space and we're going to
start with the cover and it's marked here inside this is all made in the
United States of America and don't pop out that hole because if you don't have
a feeder I think that's for people that are gonna leave bees in this long term
I'm not whenever the bees inhabitant I'm going to take it down and rehire them so
this is a temporary enclosure now what I'm doing this is the top for the box
and we're going to pre Bend everything get it kind of flexing here so that it
squares up nice and easy when it comes time to assemble it and I'm going to
show you how to do that just going to bend it around and again it looks
it looks like cardboard but it is much more durable than that and we'll get
into that as you already saw in the video I have them out in the trees now
so this is just another one I decided to make this quick tutorial for those of
you who have never seen one of these and I will show you how to put it together
and so that's it you just little tabs go in the corners there and it's where it
up and ready to go there's a cardboard insert that also has a cutout for the
feeder and we just pop that in right here and again I didn't see any
information about this feeder that would go with it but if you're gonna use this
kind of like a temporary housing for your bees and you're gonna leave them in
here for a while you're gonna want to feed them and you're gonna open the
vents and things like that but for me these are temporary this is just a trapa
swarm and then put that right into the apiary and you have to push these vent
openings from the inside I was able to catch them here with my fingernail and
pull them out because if you don't pop them out ahead of time once the screens
are in place you can't push through the screens you might damage that so push
them out now and get them ready and of course there's the main entrance to the
swarm trooper here and it just popped it out because that is going to be open
when we put this thing up in the tree somewhere and this is a close-up of the
vent enclosure again we're going to push that shot just a little bit you'll be
able to catch the edge with your fingernail if you need to open it at
another time but that is just Banting I'm gonna here of course the main
entrance so their entrance to matches the interior dimensions as I mentioned
before everything was based on the research that was done and when they
arrived at those parameters them from the author of the honeybee democracy
there so this is gonna be curious to me now again I haven't proven this I
haven't tested it I've never caught a swarm in one I'm just gonna put this
together and show you how to do it and if it works out I'm gonna share of
course with you how to get the bees out of this and put them in a hive box so it
looks pretty good to me so far and again the light weight of the entire assembly
is a huge advantage if you're climbing ladders and things and strapping these
up in the trees there's a method of suspending this with a row
and then have stabilizing ropes coming off of it I'm just anchoring them right
to the main trunk of a tree and resting it on a branch and again prebend these
as much as possible because we're gonna square it up and then we're gonna run
the straps through here to hold it in place this is where that painters tape
that comes with it comes in handy as a placeholder once you square it up and
these holes in the bottom align and we're gonna run the straps through those
so there is pretty straightforward now let's view the strap through here and I
want to align it so that the buckle is coming up the side of the Stormtrooper I
don't want it over the top or on the bottom so we're gonna feed this through
here and this is our chance to line things up just right
I'm gonna give this is your chance to square the tape is just temporary once
we get the straps in here we're going to be able to pull that painters tape right
off and it doesn't do any damage to the stormtrooper exterior this thing is
pretty nice again kind of like those campaign signs that you see in people's
yards it's designed to stand up to the weather for quite a while let's go feed
it through the bottom here and to get that going
this can be a little fussy but you can reach in for the outside and again the
alignment of that buckle is kind of what's important now at this point and I
thought I might like hot glue a DAB onto the buckle and hold its place I decided
not to it seemed to work okay without that so here we are both straps are
through and give you a quick look here on the interior that's what it looks
like inside and we're going to cover that up with a firm piece of cardboard
that's designed to insert and cover that hole - so there's no venting coming
through the bottom and it's going to be pretty much airtight all those are which
is what the bees are gonna be looking for I want to find the space it's gonna
protect them from the weather we want to put this in a tree that shelters at
midday and that get some morning Sun that's always helpful so if you can face
that to the east or to the south a little bit the entrance wise that would
be good and then these are the stiffeners for the walls that go in and
they're marked clearly there's a little stamp on it that says top there so you
can't mess it up pretty straightforward again and there
is a space between the side walls here that you'll notice and then we're gonna
put the end panels in the end panels are notched out and they're marked clearly
which side faces the inside and then the notch out just like a bee box and we're
going to put some frames in there that I'm going to show you in a second but
they just push in everything is nice there's an opening on both ends at the
bottom so it doesn't matter which one you put in one is gonna line up with
that main entrance to this warm trooper and then there's just flexing going on
here I took some hot glue and dribble it down in there and cinch that right up no
problem here it is now it's all glued up for me they say you can use tape or
something else but I decided hot glue was immediate and
worked really well so here's just the base unit all the inserts are in the
bottom the sides the end panels and of course the straps are ready to go I'm
gonna give you a close-up here of how the strap works one side is flat and
that center piece there and then it's beveled on the other so we'll feed it
through underneath closest to the buckle loop it over feed it back in and now
those teeth they're gonna grip it nice when you cinch it up and it's gonna hold
its place and of course it's also a quick clip there so you can take that
off and use this to rope it up to tree branches and things like that so that's
it it's gonna hold it together gonna keep the Box squared and we can even
take the tape off the bottom here in a second and I'm just gonna put the top on
I'll show you how it works that's it it's a simple unit I have several leads
I recommend you get a bunch of them and put them on your shelves and have them
ready to go and I'm putting pre-waxed a single piece plastic frames here I'm
going to put three of them in it has spacing for five but again I don't plan
to leave this warm in here for very long so this just gives them something to
hang on to you and to start their wax build up so let's start drawing this out
and also don't forget your swarm lures you're gonna want to put that in there a
little bit along the backs of these frames interior the cover and a tiny dab
at the main entrance so that's it it's a swarm trooper and I'll be sure to update
you when we get some swarms in here but be ready this spring your bees can swarm
at any time you're not gonna see it coming trust me it happens every year
people get off guard and they start saying wow my bees swarmed I don't even
know why so let's get ready get some swarm traps out there and take a look at
these stormtroopers that seem pretty nice thanks for watching the video keep
an eye on your bees I hope they're super healthy and I hope you have a great
honey beekeeping year thanks for watching as always
you