I have been given the extreme pleasure of helping a guy that has been a beekeeper for over forty years, He has somewhere around 230 hives, earlier this past week we had captured a large swarm in a nuk box and carried it to his shop, this is where we extract the honey, he has a couple hives next to the building and has told me that some of the field bees we carry from the various bee yards will take up residency in those hives.
We caught the swarm on Tuesday and on Friday went out to rob another field, we unintentionally brought several bees back with us in the supers.
We installed the frames from the nuk box (swarm) to a deep / brood chamber 10 frames total, then added a med. super as a food chamber 10 frames, we found a few frames of brood and bees in the supers he had just gotten from the field, so I added those in the super with the swarm.
I’m thinking this should give me a good start for this swarm. Also as we were extracting honey there were several bees on the window wanting out, so I scooped them up into a can and poured them on the entrance to my new hive several bees went right inside, after all they were full of honey, LOL
Here are my big questions
How long can it take for this colony to get settled? (Not that they are mean)
Has anyone else tried adding homeless bees to a hive and not had any problems?
Please feel free to comment in any way.