One of the colonies I was to get out of someones attic is no longer there. Very little wax was left. From what I could see where the comb was built it must have been of pretty good size. But they were gone. What I did see was great big huge rat turds all over the place.
Now I wonder if a hive is continually bothered by rodents will they move to some other location? There is this old run down delapidated house about a hundred yards or so from the first house that has bees in a wall. The young gentleman said there were bees coming out of a hole about thirty feet from where these bees were. I am athinkin' they were probably the ones from his attic but were not strong enough to make it long after the move.
Now here is something else I wonder about. These bees I got from the barn were in the north wall. This makes sense as the summer sun on the metal exterier wall woould be hot.
The bees in the pump house is in the north wall. It is also metal.
The bees that were in the attic were started on the north side of the house.
The two that were in the house a hundred yards away, and only one left, were in the north wall.
I checked out an old church building that has a large PVC pipe coming out of the wall that the bees use for an entrance (around the pipe, not through the pipe) And this is located on the north wall.
There is a house with bees under the floor and the only way for them to get under there in through a vent on the south wall.
The question is do bees normally look for homes on the north side of where ever?