Hi, I'm Julie. I was building my very first beehive today, and other than the studying I've been doing I've never handled bees. Anyway, my neighbors cut a tree down today and I now have a beehive laying in the snow in the woods behind my house. Any idea if I could save these poor creatures? I have a Nuc box build but no foundations....Any suggestions??
I would suggest trying to keep them standing upright, in the log until spring, just set it up and put a top on it. If you cut the log open now they will not survive the winter. If the honeycombs get damaged in the log they will likely die also.
i agree. don't try to get them out. if you can't get them upright, at least try to make sure they have a way to get in and out of the hive. preferable their original opening. they may not make it if to exposed, but they will not make it if you try to move them out now.
Thank you very much. If I leave them should I put any food (sugar water) or anything in with them. I'm not sure how damaged the combs are. It's a mile back to the site and it's to dark to check them tonight.
i wouldn't bother with syrup if you can leave them. they should have honey. if you try to trap them out because of severe damage to hive, you might try some lemon oil in think syrup spray to make the box more attractive. it's a long shot, in my opinion, unless they can stay where they are until spring.
there's a lot of info. about feeding bees on M. Bush site http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm
I wouldn't feed right away, if I did feed I would use the mountain camp method, and just put dry sugar on top of newspaper above the colony. BTW, make sure that they stay dry, moisture will kill them. Daniel,
Thanks....sounds like I'll be leaving them. I'll walk back tomorrow and see how bad the damage is. Sorry the posting was so vague, but I couln't get to them before dark, and the neighbors were afraid of them so I couldn't get many details. I'll build them a dry shelter and hope they make it...thanks again for your help.
Good luck and let us know how you make out!
Thanks again for your help. I joined this forum this afternoon, I was trying to find some other Michigan beekeepers. I'm really glad everyone suggests leaving it. I really didn't want to start my beekeeping adventure this way. I'll let you know how they do. Thanks again....Julie~
BTW, order a couple nucs or packages early to make sure you get some next spring in case these dont make it. If you wait you may get stuck waiting another season.
Quote from: boardplaner on January 22, 2009, 07:31:41 PM
Hi, I'm Julie. I was building my very first beehive today, and other than the studying I've been doing I've never handled bees. Anyway, my neighbors cut a tree down today and I now have a beehive laying in the snow in the woods behind my house. Any idea if I could save these poor creatures? I have a Nuc box build but no foundations....Any suggestions??
I have two important questions for you.
1) How long has the tree with the bee section been laying down?
2) Do you know if your area has small hive beetle?
In my area if the bee section has been laying down more than 2 days you can rest assured the colony has been devastated by shb and efforts to save them or feudal.
Not trying to get your hopes down, but look into this before you get your hopes up.
...JP
Oh, honestly my hopes aren't really high anyway. I realize the chances are slim. They cut the tree down this afternoon. I've been building hives and will be purchasing 5 Nucs in the spring. Would it be a bad idea to move the bees from the woods (if they make it) near my new hives?? If they have mites or something could they affect my new bees?? Yeh, I'm I'm totally new to this. And I have no idea if we have beetles here. I'm in a small town and don't know of any other beekeepers in my area to ask. I have to drive 80-100 miles to purchase Nucs this spring unless I can find someone closer. I'm still searching the web for info about bees in my area. Nashville Michigan is between Grand Rapids and Battle Creek. If anyone knows of beekeepers in my area, I'd love to here from them...eager to learn...Julie~
i can already tell you are going to be good at this :-)
your new bees will get mites anyway. don't worry about that now. don't know what to tell you about moving them. why don't you give us more info when you get a chance to look tomorrow. take pics and ask a moderator to post them for you. that will give everyone a chance to give you better advice.
Quote from: boardplaner on January 22, 2009, 09:16:57 PM
Oh, honestly my hopes aren't really high anyway. I realize the chances are slim. They cut the tree down this afternoon. I've been building hives and will be purchasing 5 Nucs in the spring. Would it be a bad idea to move the bees from the woods (if they make it) near my new hives?? If they have mites or something could they affect my new bees?? Yeh, I'm I'm totally new to this. And I have no idea if we have beetles here. I'm in a small town and don't know of any other beekeepers in my area to ask. I have to drive 80-100 miles to purchase Nucs this spring unless I can find someone closer. I'm still searching the web for info about bees in my area. Nashville Michigan is between Grand Rapids and Battle Creek. If anyone knows of beekeepers in my area, I'd love to here from them...eager to learn...Julie~
Ask them if they wouldn't mind positioning the bee section of the tree in an upright position like it was.
You can move them to your yard but I would keep some distance to quarantine them but chances are things should be fine.
...JP
Try to get the tree cut to where you can get the section with bees in it's original orientation. "vertical" Cover the top to keep the rain out. Moving them now won't make any difference. Anything they will give your hives, or vice versa, will happen equally at 10 feet or 1 mile. Leave them in the tree log until your area has blooms in the spring. Then do a cut out or trap out. If you feed inside the log, use granulated sugar, dry. You could set up a liquid feeding station 50 feet from the log, but they would only use it on days above 45 F. That could be in addition to the dry sugar inside the log.
I'll check them out tomorrow, take some pictures and let you know. They said the bees were hanging off the side of the tree before they cut it down. That seemed strange, as it was only about 20 degrees here. It was a huge beech tree and it it was so high up they thought it was a fungi fungas growing on the tree. It'll be interesting to see how many bees we're talking about. I guess the hole in the tree was baseball size but the fungus that grows on the beech trees here are football sized so there must have been quite a few bees hanging outside. Overcrowding? Or is that normal? I'm wondering how deep the hollow is they're living in. I'll let you know tomorrow.
HI, I'm 50 miles west of GR. North of Muskegon. Not that close but there are a lot of us around here. just hidden. LOL
Hi
I'm not too far away, and I've got a log with a hive in it to pick up soon too.
Not a whole lot that you can do, just get the log upright or however it was originally, any holes that would let rain or snow in covered.
We had one last year, but it died in Feb. Didn't do much to it, and it had plenty of honey left. Ah well, you get what you pay for, right? ;)
Rick
Julie,
Welcome! It's terrific to see new folks become interested in beekeeping. It's a real addiction. All the best to you in looking after your find. We are eagerly awaiting pictures.
Tracy
Well, no excitement at all. The entrance hole to the hive was on the bottom of the log so I had to lay on my back to look into it. Not one bee. Not even any dead ones. The log is about 10 feet long and I have no way of telling how deep it's hollowed out. There is more than one hole in the log so maybe the bees are farther in than I can see. The guys are going to haul it up with the horses and work on it with chain saws, but I don't know when they'll be able to do it. It looked to me like an animal may have gotton part of the hive. There seems to be lots of honey left, but there's really nothing I can do with a log 10 feet long and 3 feet across so I guess I'll wait and see when they cut it open. It's was still a nice walk in the woods and the Amish girls were trying to teach me how to say "What a Bummer" in Amish Dutch......Maybe next time.....Thank you all for you help....Julie!~
if you get the chance to be there when then open it, take it. seeing hives in their natural state is very helpful. you get a feel for what the bees do when they have their own way, and it will help you manage your own hives better.
Quote from: boardplaner on January 23, 2009, 05:12:40 PM
Well, no excitement at all. The entrance hole to the hive was on the bottom of the log so I had to lay on my back to look into it. Not one bee. Not even any dead ones. The log is about 10 feet long and I have no way of telling how deep it's hollowed out. There is more than one hole in the log so maybe the bees are farther in than I can see. The guys are going to haul it up with the horses and work on it with chain saws, but I don't know when they'll be able to do it. It looked to me like an animal may have gotton part of the hive. There seems to be lots of honey left, but there's really nothing I can do with a log 10 feet long and 3 feet across so I guess I'll wait and see when they cut it open. It's was still a nice walk in the woods and the Amish girls were trying to teach me how to say "What a Bummer" in Amish Dutch......Maybe next time.....Thank you all for you help....Julie!~
When you mentioned the bees were bearding on the exterior of the tree in frigid temperatures my first thought was that some animal had entered and disrupted the colony, now it makes sense.
Julie, a ten foot section is pretty big, you would want to find the winter cluster if you could and cut that section of the tree out. Sounds like this would be a real challenge being the tree is so far from where you live.
You know when it warms sufficiently, if the bees survive, they will most likely swarm out and relocate. You could keep tabs on things with the owners and at the very least you could put out a swarm trap or two and perhaps catch a swarm from this colony.
Best of luck.
...JP
They're going to call me when they haul the log up. They're Amish and I thought they'd use the horses to bring it up, but I talked to them tonight and they'll use the Crawler. (dozer with forks on the front and a wench on the back) It's down in a gully 20-30 ft but they're operating a saw mill in the woods so they say it's no big deal to drag it up the bank and use the fork to haul it up to the house. He'll just start cutting small slices off one end of the log until we can see something. They're really very interested in doing it, but they're cutting pallet lumber which is about their only income right now so they can't stop to play with the bees. We can't tip it upright, it's in the way of other trees they're hauling. As the log lays now, there's a small entrance hole the size of a half dollar on the top. That's where he claimed he saw the bees. But there's a larger baseball size hole on the bottom of the log where the honey is dripping out. This larger hole is three feet away from the small hole. We thought maybe it would help to roll the log so the holes were on opposite sides instead of top and bottom. I don't know???? I'm almost sure an animal got to it. And the bees are probably gone. It just seems soooo cold for them to be flying around. I will say though beech trees tend to be hollow so they've got plenty of hollow logs to move into if they did take flight. Thanks for all your help. I'll let you know when we can cut into it. Now, I'll go do some studying on swarm traps....Yep, I'm really, really new to this ! Thanks again everyone...Julie~