First cutout - nervous

[tlynn]

Hi all,

I am helping a friend with a cutout this weekend - he's a new beekeeper and got interested in bees because of this hive which has been there a few years.  The colony is occupying the inside of a large wall of a shed between the studs and inside a raised toilet platform in the shed (they had a slab and as an afterthought built up the toilet instead of trenching so it sits up on a box that's full of bees).  I haven't seen it yet and apparently there are two entrances - one in the wall and one where they busted through the wall to run the waste line.  Looks like in addition to removing the outside wall we'll have to pop the toilet and open the enclosure which means bees everywhere inside the shed.  I'm nervous because there seems to be two areas to retrieve and I am not the greatest at spotting queens on my own frames, much less in a cutout.  I guess I am envisioning chaos and a difficult time finding the queen.  Any ideas/suggestions/references?

[Kathyp]

i'll give  you some general ideas and let the real pros like JP and iddee give you specific answers to your questions.

the first thing that strikes me is that you should go prepared to take out 2 hives.  you may be dealing with one, but from the sound of it, you would do well to go prepared for two.

take the things on the removal list.  skim through the info in the honeybee removal section.  take plenty of empty containers for honey, junk wax, etc.  you may want to smoke them.  i prefer not to.  i think not smoking makes it that much easier to find the queen right there on the brood comb.  the bees have some pretty tell-tale behavior around the queen.  if you recognize it in your hives, you'll see it (hopefully) in the hive you are removing.

ignore the bees flying around.  walk away for a bit if you have to.  gives you time to settle and them also.  work slowly and methodically from the outside in.  it's  much easier if you get the honey and junk out of the way before you remove the brood comb.  have your frames set up before you start.  if you can leave the hives until after dark, you'll pretty much know if you got the queen into your hive.  if you are going to use a vacuum, you don't have to worry so much about leaving them.  you'll get her one way or another unless she runs and hides in a crack.  if you are not using a vacuum, take a bottle of sugar water.  it helps in sweeping up the odd clumps that will form all over the place  :-)

tuck in your shirt  :-D  make sure you have plenty of time.  my average cut out takes about 3 hours.

[tlynn]

Thanks Kathy.  Got the list and have most of the stuff.  If I have tons of brood comb could put some in extra nucs and fill with bees and hope for them to raise a queen?  We plan to leave the brood box(es) at the entrances and retrieve them after dark.

Oh, and how about stings through rubber gloves.  Can they penetrate them?  I'll look for white gloves of course.  ;-)  I have some of those thick black chemical gloves.  I'd imagine they'd not be too thrilled with them!

[Kathyp]

you probably won't save more brood comb than you can fit in a 10 frame deep (famous last words) per hive.  don't bother with honey comb.  just save the best of the brood...eggs if you can for sure, and feed the heck out of them when you get them home.

don't know about the rubber gloves.  i use my leather gloves.  be aware the you will be pretty dirty and sticky when you are done.  i take more than one pair of gloves because they get so gummed up with honey and stuff.  oh, and a pair of boots that you can tuck your pants into....or tape the bottom of your pants.  there will be bees on the ground and you don't want to be stripping down in public.

pm JP or iddee and see if they can pitch in with some ideas for you.  they are the masters.  good luck.  take pictures!!   :-D

[JP]

Tlynn, a few things. One, I don't open any void space without smoking first (no offense Kathy). Smoke the entrance a decent bit, then expose the hive. The bees are the most agitated when exposing the colony, but once its exposed, its all downhill from there. They settle down quickly once they are exposed, and the vast majority 95% or so will remain on the combs or the wall.

Try and use natural light when removing them or a red light, a bright white light they will fly to and you will have a bunch more flying around than you may want. Open exterior doors or windows also if you can.

The one on the toliet, same thing. Smoke them, access the colony, let them settle down, then do your thing.

Take your time, and remove the comb sections from the outside, leaving some in the center. She may run to the outside anyway, if she's a shy queen, but she very well may wind up in the center.

Keep a watchful eye out for the queen but remember, most of the time in a cut out, the queen is found when almost every section of comb has been removed. There will usually be a cluster somewhere, usually at the top corner, if a wall void, and the queen will be inside the cluster.

If you need to talk further and have specific questions you can pm me if you like or Iddee.


...JP

[iddee]

Thanks for coming in, JP. As you know, I don't like going in from the top and that sounds like what this one will be. Tlynn, I just want to double stress what JP said about working the comb from the outside of the nest to the center. I even leave a couple of combs about a foot long in the center of the nest. If you don't get her, that is where she will return to.

[Kathyp]

not to worry jp.   that's why i told him to get to you guys.  most of mine are outbuildings and folks get twitchy about fire in their barns.  after i did a few without smoke, seemed like it was one step i could skip without consequence.  i do bring my smoker!!

enjoy the experience.  i'll look forward to hearing about it and seeing the pics.

[mswartfager]

tynn,

This is my second year bee keeping.  I Did my first cut-out this summer.  Had a lot of anxiety, but it went better than I could have imagined.  They were so calm.  I was completely suited up, but my father-in-law, who knows nothing about bees, helped me and he wore only a t-shirt and jeans.  He got one minor sting on a finger and that was it. (I don't like getting stung at all....and didn't.) I didn't use any smoke - didn't have too.  Had about 12 pieces of comb that I scraped loose with wide putty knife.  I had two deep hives standing by with plenty of frames and rubber bands.  It took us about three hours.  I found the queen by chance and put her in the hive.  I put a queen excluder on the bottom of the hive and then I put the lid on.  I left them set a few feet from where they were cut out of till dark and then I moved them only about 100 feet from the building we took them out of.  They adjusted fine.  The next day any remaining bees found their way to their new home.  About 3-4 days later I removed the queen excluder and they have been building comb and adjusting fine ever since.  On thing I would do different is to put as much of the cut out comb in each frame as possible and then put them in the smallest hive possible.  I think I left them with too much room inside the hive because they have completely cleaned out and abandoned some of the cut-out comb on the outside frames and I'm going to have to straighten up some of the other comb building in the middle of their brood nest.  The experience is one I'll never forget and it was well worth the time.  Good luck.   Mark.

[mswartfager]

Tlynn,

Also, I just removed the comb very slowly one at a time from one side to the other.  I didn't find the queen until I had all of the comb removed She was was found still in a clump of confused bees as I gently used my bee brush to get more out of the ceiling cavity into the box.    Mark.

[tlynn]

Many thanks for the thoughtful suggestions.  We postponed it this weekend due to the soaking we're getting.  That will actually give my friend some time to consider where he wants to put his hive, since I learned yesterday those details were not yet worked out.

[tlynn]

If our weather holds up tomorrow's the day...my wife's going to stay out of the stickiness and take pictures.

As I mentioned there are 3 entrances where the bees are coming in and out.  If it's indeed the same hive do I block up the two least used ones and place the hive in front of the busiest?  My friend plans to come back around midnight and close off the hive entrance and move it to his new place.

[tlynn]

Done...whew...

We opened up the closed off door frame to find it pretty much full of comb.  We pulled out maybe 80# of honeycomb and then gently cut off strips of brood that fit nicely in the frames.  We have 8 frames of capped brood and 2 frames of honey set up.  Unfortunately we did not find a queen in there.  We did get a lot of bees in the hive and left it setting next to the sealed off entrance until night.  My friend retrieved the hive and had a preprepared feeder with 50 50 honey and water and placed it in the hive after he relocated it last night.  He told me this morning they had already taken maybe 20%, so I figured that was a good sign that we have plenty of bees (or else his jar is leaking!).  He's going to leave the hive alone this week and check this weekend for eggs.  If no joy he's going to get a queen,

One other thing was I couldn't find much pollen comb at all, so the hive essentially has none to feed the larvae, and there are a good bit of uncapped larvae in there.

Seemed to be a success all in all except for the queen which we still may have gotten and not realized.  I'll post pictures later today.

I have new appreciation for the effort involved in doing a cutout, especially on a southerly exposure in the summer in Florida!

[Scadsobees]

They sound like really crappy bees!   :-D

Keep an eye on them, in my experience, when you don't get the queen the hive kind of stagnates,  and in the disarray the beetles find opportunity.  The bees can abandon a lot of the brood.

Once a new queen starts laying, then they take off pretty well.

By this weekend, if he doesn't find eggs, then there will likely be almost capped queen cells.