A bee trap is a wonderful thing. You take it and put it underneath the bee box you want to steal (full of honey), and the bees go down through the hole into the bottom, and they can't get back up. Going down is easy, but coming back, you have created a labyrinth. They can't find their way. So, slowly, your top box empties out of bees. You put it out the day before you want to take the honey. It works like a charm... usually.
Yesterday, we put out the bee traps- I got stung at least three times, and was kind of freaking out, and we were out of smoker fuel when we did this one. Today, I went out to get the honey, and I picked up the box- damn, that's heavy! So full of honey! Except, not. It was full of angry bees! We had put the bee trap in the wrong way, so that once they bees went up into the top box, they couldn't get back down. I therefore had
maximum number of angry bees in my box.
Well, at least I had the smoker going. I didn't get stung today.
So, yeah, no honey yet.
I taped two of the traps onto the box, one on each side, facing so that the bees can fly out, now, and can't get back in. The box is separate from the bee hive. I'll go back and pick it up tomorrow.
Update: a lot of honey, actually, from the other hive:
