In this post a few days back I mentioned how my one and only first hive died off in February and also mentioned that my step-dad's only hive a half-mile away also died.
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,32120.msg263649.html#msg263649 (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,32120.msg263649.html#msg263649)
Well, it turns out that my step-dad's hive didn't die off. He told me a few days ago that last fall he had put the entrance reducer in wrong and that there wasn't any bottom entrance at all since that time. Last summer he had drilled a 1" hole in his top (third) deep for ventilation/top entrance. In February he found a pile of bees at the front of the hive and some terrible looking bee poop all over the outside of the hive including poop running out of the top entrance.
So, I figured that he had opened it up and found the whole colony dead. Twas not so, he never opened it up, he just assumed. He was in the yard today and went over to the hive and pulled out the backwards entrance reducer (in this case an entrance blocker!) and bees boiled out of the hive like it was on fire! So he was tickled to death that his dead hive came back to life! :)
And I'm tickled to death that the swarm traps that I made last weekend and mentioned in the below post were being visited by his bees all day long in huge clouds!
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,12721.msg265124.html#msg265124 (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,12721.msg265124.html#msg265124)
I knew it was way too early to put them out last week but I hung them anyway figuring that it will save me time when I get busy with other things. I figured that I would just refresh the lemongrass oil lures that I'm using when the weather turns for the better. On a whim I did put some lemongrass oil in each trap when I hung them. He said his bees were going back and forth from his hive all day to both of the swarm traps that I have in his yard (about 20 yards from his hive). We went out tonight at dark and closed the trap door on the traps figuring that if for some reason the lure induces them to swarm early that they probably won't make it, especially with this cold weather that is forecast for the foreseeable future.
I have me a good feeling on these swarm traps that I built! :)
Been there and done that. Duh! :-D
I have gone around early spring marking hives dead or alive many times, then later upon swapping out the dead ones for live ones, was surprised to find a colony still alive.
I even loaded a couple on the truck last year that had small clusters in the top box over on one side. Even after breaking the boxes apart and stacking them on the truck did I not find out till later that bees were still alive.