duckbox strike 2

[Understudy]

Well this past Saturday I went to remove the hive of bees living in the duckbox. The move went ok, not great but not bad.

Things I have learned. Bees which are nice one weekend may be in a bad mood the next weekend.
The bees were really cool when I did the survey. The following weekend when I went to go and take them down they where outright mean. I got up the ladder to check on them and do a little smoke and halfway up the ladder they nailed me. I went up unprepared without bee gear on and got nailed over 20 times. I have developed a nice immunity to it but the swelling and stiffness still sucks.

Honeycomb can be very delicate. Either in taking down the box or moving it or mounting it. Most of the comb broke. That just sucks. I thought the honey was leaking because of the heat issue. I inspected it through a side door and found most of it had fallen loose.

You can create great enviroments and bees will still abscond. The is the third hive I have taken from the wild. Two of the three have flown off. My record is not very good.

I need to learn ways to spot wild queens easier. I really suck at finding the queens. Even in my hives.

So back to the story. The bees in the duckbox stung the hell out of me. I deserved it. I managed to move the bees to my yard and as I was preparing the new hive for the bees. The duckbox fell over. This may have contributed to the damage on the comb. I rigged up another great migration contrabtion to make up for the flaws that happen with the first one. I had not realized the comb had fallen. The bees just hung on the box. Some hung in the new hive which had a stiff pipe to join the two boxes together.
This means was genius I will post pics and diagrams a little later.

However the element of luck was not with me. I noticed honey dripping out of the bottom on Sunday. Not a lot but some. I figure it was due to heat. I drilled a bunch of small holes into the duckbox to increase ventilation. The duckbox has a side door but I didn't want to open it because the the small hive beetles would move in and the robbing would be bad.

However this morning I decided that I would open it. When I did I saw most of the comb had fallen. It was very sad. Also the bees were still uncertain of the queens location based on their behavior. I went to work. I snuck home briefly after lunch and saw that all the bees had taken off. Well I guess they found the queen and she didn't like where she was at.

I will go through and clean out the duckbox. Try to learn some lessons from this.

[Scott Derrick]

Understudy,

Sorry to hear bout your lack of success. It really stinks when you put so much effort into swarms or wild hives and lose one. Especially when you have spend hours trying to bring it back to your bee yard. So far I have taken two swarms this year and none have left me yet. I take a frame of brood from an existing hive and place it into middle of the hive body. My mentor says this is the high percentage way not to lose a swarm. He tell sme that they will not leave brood.

I asked him how many swarms he has caught in his live and what percentage he lost. He say he has caught over 100 and lost maybe 2% using the brood frame insertion method.

All the best on your new captures... :)

Scott

[Understudy]

Yeah, that is a great idea. I am not quite at the stage where I can be swapping brood frames yet. But I am working on it.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Michael Bush]

Just try to get the brood and harvest the honey (a five gallon bucket with a lid to keep the bees out).  Honey comb, especially NEW honeycomb, is VERY fragile.

[Brian D. Bray]

Tips on finding the Queen:
MB will laugh.
first let me say that a lot of experienced beekeepers laugh at me when I tell them this but when I was a kid I use to win the queen finding contests we had at our annual Northwest Beekeepers Association Picnic @ Big Lake in Skagit County.  By the time I was 14 I had graduated to the adult competition and still won.

1.  The queen has a favorite spot she likes to go to whenever the hive is disturbed (opened).  It is usually near the edge of the brood chamber.
2. A queen doesn't like to stay in the middle of things when the hive is disturbed to the center three or four frames has the least likelyhood of containing the queen.  To most natural predators the brood is a more desirable feast than the honey so the queen flees the the densest brood areas.  
3.  Standing at the back of the hive and remove the third frame from the far left and inspect it for the queen.  If not there pull the forth frame and inspect and if unsucessfull pull frame 2.  If still unsuccessful switch sides of the hive, pulling the third frame from the far right, etc.
4.  You will seldom find her on the honey ring, but start your search along the edge of the honey ring and brood cells.
5.  When You've located the queen note the frame on which she was located (you might want to write the location on the up side of the inner top) as that will usually be her location every time the hive is examined.  
6.  Keep in mind that the queen is going to have her attendants trying to hide her so look for a moving clup, first, rather that and individual bee.  The queen will often travel through the hive by crawling under workers working the brood.  That moving bump or cluster will usually have the queen under it.

[Understudy]

Well this was a feral colony living in the duckbox. Most likely the comb collapsed on the ride home. I just wasn't smart enough to realize it.
Finding the queen in a collapsed hive is even harder than finding one in a standard hive box. Not that I am real good at that.

Michael, in Florida you are not going to like hearing this. Comb left unoccupied for more than a few hours is already destroyed. Hive beetles infest comb in moments. Flies are there even sooner. By the time I opened it 24 hours later the maggots and beetles had won.

I may try to melt it down for wax. But that is about it. Also 90% of the comb was brood.

Sincerely,
Brendhan