Hello All, It's been a while since I posted or even read this forum. Lots of nice changes. So.. I have neglected my beehives for about 2 years while I built a house and changed jobs. I have read about people losing bees and the trouble with mites and ccd. I wanted to share my GOOD luck this spring. I finally had time to think about getting bees again after 2 years, so I unpacked some hives with the intention of purchasing a package or two. Well within a few weeks, a swarm moved into one of my empty hives. A few weeks later, I got a call from someone asking if I wanted a swarm. So in less than a month, I went from not a beekeeper to having two colonies, one of which is doing very well. I have one small problem. I just noticed thet the first swarm moved into a hive with a half empty box on top and they have it completely filled with comb and honey hanging from the inner cover. I don't want to mess with it too much because they might have some brood in that top box and this being their first year in this hive, I want them to have every chance to succeed. Should I add a box in between the the two that are there, hoping they move any brood down? I could eventually remove the messed up box and harvest honey and wax. But I am afraid of potentially dividing any brood that may bee in the lower part of the top box. It's hard to inspect the new comb they have hung from the cover. I'm sure at least some of you have forgot to put in all the frames before and had similar problems. What should I do?
Thanks, Tom
If you can find the queen and make sure she is in the bottom box, but a queen excluder below the messed up super so the queen can't go back up there and lay. Wait for the brood that is in there to hatch and then remove it. The longer you wait to address the problem, the bigger hassle it will be. If there isn't a lot of brood in it, just sacrifice it and clean it up now.
i get to go do a search and capture tomorrow. the lady says there are tons of bees around the hedge and they have been there for a long time. nothing is blooming to attract them, so i'm guessing there may be a hive in the hedge row.
this time i made the lady send pictures of the bees to make sure they were really honey bees! no more yellow jackets, or bumble bees for me :-)
Thanks for the advice, Robo. I'll try that. I can't really inspect the top box without destroying it now, but I do have an excluder and I guess I'll just play the waiting game with them bees.
TJ