The West Palm Beach Honeybee Massacre

[amymcg]

What if you put on some gloves, pick up the clump and dump it in the hive?

Does anyone else think that will work?  I've never done this so I'm not really sure why they are hanging out in front so much.

Raising a new queen would take about 30 days before she's laying eggs.

[Finsky]

The clump is right next to the entrance with the newspaper.  

Really strange that they do not go in. They need shelter and food. They will die soon. Is there in the box smell of paint or something which force them out. Or do they have queen in that clump, dead or alive?

Put two piece of wood on boath side of clumb. Then you put hivebox over the clumb without bottom board. I wonder if they do not rise onto frames.

Last autumn I wondered when clumb of bees was under the hive. I gived smoke and it revealed that queen was hidden under bottom and bees gathered around it. It was cold and they did not knew how to get queen inside.

[Ross]

Get rid of the open feeder.  You may start a robbing frenzy.  
I wonder if you swept out the queen (alive or dead) with the debris and that is what is keeping the cluster outside.  

If your area has drones this time of year, and if you have young enough eggs, they will make a queen.  If not, they will dwindle and eventually leave most likely.  They can't make a queen from capped brood.  If things haven't settled down in a few days, you may need to seek out a beekeeper and get a frame of eggs if you can't get a queen.

[Understudy]

I am breathing normally again.
The details:
I didn't get to read the other replies since my last post. I did make a quick run home at lunch. I had a thought if they are all attached to the paper why not dump them in the bottom of the hive.

So I lifted the hive up and took all the bees on the paper and shook them onto the bottom part of the hive and recovered the board. There were still some bees on the ground next to the hive where the newspaper was but not many. I went back to work.

I came home about 5:30pm EST (GMT+5) and lifted up the paper and there were no bees. Nada, zip, zero. I think this is excellent.

There are a ton of bees running in the hive and traffic levels are looking more normal. I took some photos at around 6:00pm, by then most of the bees were asleep and traffic had come to an end for the day.

I am still uncertain if there is a queen, I did not spot one. I still suspect the answer is no. I am going to look in the boat again tonight.

I want to move the bee hive back on top of the barrel tonight as I don't want the snakes of mice to get into the hive.

I am thinking of ordering a second deep soon because all the frames are full with hive. I want the bees to get back to a normal operating mode and then add the second  hive box.

The weather has started to warm up again and will be this way for a couple of days and then it is going to drop back into a high 60F low 40F mode for about a week to 2 weeks.

Keep sending me your ideas comments and other information as I am grateful for all the help.

Hopefully things will start to get back to normal here.

You can see the updated pics on aftermath, showing no bees.
http://www.understudy.net/images/aftermath/index.html

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Finsky]

Your barrel is not good idea at all. Take a fast lower basin. 40 cm is enough.

It seems that your hive entrance is wide open? Reduce it to size about 1 cm x 10 cm. So snakes and mice cannot run in. It keeps hive warm.

[Understudy]

Things seem to be getting to a normal level. I took a old fishtank I have and put the hive on top of it. I put the entrance reducer in place. Things seem to going along bees fly in and out. I refilled the feeder with corn syrup. There were a couple of bees working on that.

I am going to open the hive on saturday. Take a look around.

The South Florida Fair in Palm Beach County opens Friday, they have a bee display there. I am going to see if I can get any extra information out of them.

I have updated aftermath pictures. But I think this will be the last one for aftermath.
http://www.understudy.net/images/aftermath/index.html

Sincerely,
Brendhan