I did a cutout last sunday it was a warm day just right to save comb with eggs and brood banded the brood in took about an hour and while banding i shook bees into the deep to help draw bees in vaced up bees using a vac like iddee's went ahead and opened them up on top of hive before leaving cutout total time i was there 2 hours took hive out to where i take my cutouts and swarms went back about 2 hours later and vaced up the stragglers that had drifted into the cutout. went to add to hive i had a deep above the inner cover for a jar feeder they had crawled above the inner cover and was all in the top with very few in the bottom with the comb i shook them back down into the bottom box replaced the inner cover and put feeder back on next day they was right back in top i cant keep them down they are in the top drawing comb off the top cover usually if they dont like what you have in the hive they have absconded on me never had a problem keeping them down. Im going to give it a few days to see if the queen might be up with them and laying. has anyone seen this happen before
Could something like honey dripping on them or ants be the culprit?
...JP
no I dont band in comb with honey just brood in various stages no ants that i can see. Im going to open it up tomorrow and see if there is evidence of a queen. I will probly pull out the banded in comb as the brood has probly died and put them on comb and add a frame of eggs to see if they make a queen
I have seen just the opposite of what you say you've seen. I have never seen them stay on frames when they had open space in a hive. They always prefer the open space. Get them on the comb and don't give them access to any open space anywhere.
how are they getting up there? plug up the holes. your jar should cover the inner cover hole and the inner cover should keep them out of your cover box.
since they are getting up there, they consider that part of their hive. since they build from the top down, they are doing what comes naturally.
went out today to put them on drawn comb they had 3 pieces drawn out about 6 inch ovals low and behold the queen was laying so i did get her she must have went thru the vac. or when i shook some off the comb into the box but anyhow one way or another i got here as many cracks as there was around the cutout i figured she would run into one of them