I did a cutout this week. When I went to retrive my hive they had moved form the hive onto a milkcrate- thankfully an easy move for me. I shook bees back into box and clossed it up and took'm home. For a few days they were acting unusual. Lots of activity, an attempted robbing incident where i was able to reduce entrance and sdave the. Next day they absconded into a tree in my yard. So this AM, i removed a hanging swarm and put them back in box on top of excluder. They are back in tree as i just received a call from my neighbor saying there are "million" of bees in my apple tree. I guess I'll keep attemting to get bees abck in box. Thrre are about 4lbs of bees too. Might just do a combine w/ weaker hive.
I removed a colony 2 yrs ago that kept doing the same thing, they abandoned the hive twice and within 2 days time shb moved in and layed waste to all brood comb. The queen was black and I was disappointed things went the way they did.
That hive may be more trouble than they're worth.
...JP
I put them on top of an excluder and they absconded again. So I retrieved them yet again. They keep landing on low branches so they have been easy. I put them back in another hive, a gain on top of an excluder.
I'll see what happens at lunch time as i am doing a honey sales tour of apiary for about ten customers.