Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: bassman1977 on November 01, 2005, 09:33:08 pm
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A hive was found in our hay barn today. I'm not sure the size yet. Probably won't be able to have a look until Thursday at the earliest. At this point in the season, what can be done with this hive if I was to capture it? I would really like to have a third hive, and would really like to avoid combining. I have two medium boxes with frames ready to go. If I did try to keep this hive without the combining, will this be sufficiant to winter the hive? Other suggestions are welcome. This is my first capture attempt.
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Is there a problem with it that it won't keep until spring?
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By "found a hive" do you mean that it's ferrel? If that's the case then why not wait until Spring and then hive it. Distrubing it now will only harm it.
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Is there a problem with it that it won't keep until spring?
Size maybe.
By "found a hive" do you mean that it's ferrel?
I would use that term loosely. Probably someone's bees that got away, if anything. The hive is going to eventually get disturbed over the winter if I was to keep it there. Trust me, I would much rather wait until spring. The hive is close to the hay (if not in it). Apparently there is quite a bit of comb.
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You don't want to combine them, and they might get lost over the winter no matter what you do. I think they would have a better chance if you leave them until spring. Unless they are really in the way and could get wiped out by moving hay over the winter.
Next best thing is to pick a warm day, I prefer in the mid to upper seventies, carefully cut the comb out and if I find any brood Tie it into frames. This late in the year you could try to feed what honey you find back to them and/or feed sugar. Personally I wouldn't give it much hope of making it with out combining.
I have several colonies lined up for spring removal. Even down here I feel it is too latee in the year to mess with them.
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When I go over Thursday, I'm going to see if it would be a problem to wait. Hopefully not. They are calling for showers over the weekend, and the more this gets sat on, the worse the weather will be for this. Keep your fingers crossed for me (and them) that they can wait until spring.
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If they can stay in the barn and they look a little shy of stores, you could set up a feeder for them inside the barn
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I had a look at the hive today. They have their hive inside of a bail of hay. Not exactly sure how deep it runs yet. Could be four bails deep. They are planning on taking all the hay out in a few weeks so it's either get them and hope they can survive, or they meet their maker. I prefer the later, so I am going to attempt a rescue mission this Sunday.
Being that it's getting late in the year, I'm not expecting brood, just comb filled with honey. I am going to attempt to take as much honey comb as possible and rubber band it into the frames. Then feed them until it's not feasable to feed any longer. Hopefully they will be able to make repairs and draw more comb.
I would appreciate any suggestions.
One thing I am curious about though...
I know that if you look at foundation, you have a "Y" shape in the cell pattern and an upside down "Y" shape on the opposite side, and that it is good practice to keep them consistant. Is this something that is essential, or can this be done however it needs to be done? I'm anticipating this to get quite messy and would like to keep the time required to do this, down, as much as possible.
My plan is, that if this hive happens to make it through the winter, to replace the salvaged comb in the spring in an effort to regress the bees to small cell.
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I always have problems trying to tie the honey filled comb into frames. It is heavey and the comb is flimsy and falls apart. What ever brood comb they may have will be very dark. I would get all of that I could tied into frames even if there is no brood. This way they will have a place to store the honey you feed back to them.
When bees build new comb in a new place, the first they build is the center comb. The "Y" on this comb will be side ways. Then if they have decent comb built the upside down "Y" will face the center comb while the other up right "Y" will face outwards.
they will manage no matter how you place the comb in but it is said they do a lot better if the "Y" is placed as they would do in the wild. You could always rework it when the weather warms up.
Regressing:
You might take a ruler with you and measuree the cells in the brood area to see if they are not already down a bit in size. All the colonies I have captured, that I have measured, were down in the 5.0 to 4.7 ranges in the brood area.
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I look your weather forecast and your tempereture is quite low fo feedind or something.
If you leave into hay ball, mice and shrews probably destroy the hive.
If I should be in your situation I would "unwrap" the hay away as much as possible so shape of hive will become in sight. Then I should make a shelter box where I lift the hive. Box is against mice and cold. In old days they kept colonies in straw hives. That is OK.
If the hive is small, would 2-3 hive boxes be large enough to put it in?
When you put that hive on scales you will find out how much it has honey.
If weight is 40 lbs, it survive surely to the cleansing flight. It is not long time to that happening. After cleansing flight it is safe to give more food to hive.
At spring hive starts brood raising. Soon after cleasing flight , when snow is away, you put a deep over the hive and you pour sugar solution in cells.
Bees raise up to the box and queen follows too. When you see the queen, put exluder between hay hive and your box. After 3 weeks you have no broon downstairs and bees have uppstair home. - With this you need to fight with bees.
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Hopefully they will be able to make repairs and draw more comb.
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I suppose that winter is coming to you and this is not time to draw new comb.
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I woudln't worry about the Housel positioning. If you can keep them facing the direction that they were in the orginal hive, great, if not, you'll have your hands full just getting them into a box.
I never had a lot of luck tying honey into frames either, but the darker ones with cocoons in them will hold up better, so I'd probably try to tie them in so they'll have some stores. If you have some drawn comb or better yet some comb with honey in it, you could give that to them for stores. Mainly they need bees and stores and a queen. If they get all of that they will probably do ok.