Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => HONEYBEE REMOVAL => Topic started by: Hemlock on October 04, 2010, 10:30:37 pm
-
It's inside an abandon house but external in nature. I watched JP's videos and saw how he always seems to leave the hive box at the scene. My question is'
Does the hive box sit for several days, or just until nightfall when all the bees are in it?
-
You can leave it for as long as you wish, but if you haven't captured the queen the bees won't stay for long.
A lot of my removals are remote for me (maybe an hour drive sometimes) and I often don't have the luxury of being able to make another trip to gather the box(s) after dark. In such cases I'll make sure to find the queen, dump as many bees in with the queen (caged) and the removed brood and vacuum the rest to combine later in the bee yard. I find that I normally get all but maybe 100 or so field bees which I then inform the owner may hang around for a few days. Works for me.
The best case scenario is as you see in JP (THE MAN)'s videos :-D
There's lots of ways to handle it...pick what suits you and the job circumstances best.
Scott
-
Scott got it covered pretty well.
This evening I drove 45 minutes to remove one colony which turned out to be two. The larger of the two was queenless with nothing but drone brood comb.
I will be combining them tomorrow.
Because of the drive and the height where they were I used the bee vac and left close to dark, but as Scott (the hardwood) :-D mentioned, leaving the hive there for a day or two is the best way to go, if you catch the queen/queens.
...JP
-
Thanks guys.
One more question. How long do you leave the queen caged?
-
Mated queens can be left caged for about three days, more really, but after that time the bees usually will build comb around the catcher, making it hard to open.
Virgins no more than two days, because she has to get mated.
...JP
-
The cutout was unsuccessful. The external hive i found to be abandon. There are bees in the wall of the old house but I'm not sure how many; maybe enough to survive winter. I smoked a hole in the wall and got a buzzing sound. Not as loud as when i smoke a hive though. Hard to tell for sure. I'm thinking about what to do for now. Might be we leave them in the wall for winter and try again next year when their numbers are up, i don't know yet.
Here are some picts...
My theory is that these bees originally came from the wall. they expanded & made this comb in '09 (comb still very pale in color). The worst winter in 50 years killed the external bees; there were some 'starved bees'. But that's all just a guess...
(http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/7783/windowiu.jpg)
You can see the comb in the top of the window. Facing East
(http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3825/externalcomb.jpg)
There are signs of wax moth damage. No honey, no pollen, no anything
(http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/2287/deadbees.jpg)
Blurry, but a pile of bees. Dead from winter i think
(http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/7232/holeinwall.jpg)
I believe the bees are low in the wall. This comb is very old.