My wife and I performed our first removal today and I wanted to share the experience and ask a question or two. The bees were in the wall of an old abandoned house and the owners allowed us to cut the inside wall out with a saws all. The house was falling apart so no harm done.
The bees had obviously swarmed in the recent past because there was not a lot of bees and we saw several empty swarm cells. These bees appeared to be Caucasians (which most of our feral bees are) and were very black.
We found very little brood but rubber-banded what we did find into frames. We could not find the queen but we may have found a small virgin queen later that day. To be honest, it is hard to tell if the bee we got is a queen. I have seen a lot of queens this year but this would be the smallest queen I have ever seen. Anyway, there was so much honey comb we ended up with a giant sticky mess. We cut the honey comb out and put it into a five gallon bucket but bees were everywhere and were getting stuck in all of the honey that was dripping everywhere.
We left the 2 medium body hive there and had brushed as many sticky bees as we could into the hive. I will go back tomorrow to see if things have calmed down. I must admit we made a complete mess with the honey comb. We had honey and sticky bees everywhere!
How do you find a queen in a mess like that? These bees have been there for years and had comb everywhere. Should I have tried to brush bees away from the comb before cutting it out? Once the honey comb started getting cut, honey was going everywhere. I feel like we honey drowned hundreds of bees. While we had a great time and I believe we learned a lot, I feel like it was a poor first removal. The comb was easy to get to and the wall cut went easy. I think maybe I cut into the honey comb too soon or something.
Anyway… That’s the story and I would appreciate some comments on a better way to get the bees before making such a mess…
I just keep putting the tied brood comb in the box and shaking all the bees off the combs into the box and then brushing the last clusters of bees into a dustpan and dumping them in the box. Then I wait for them to settle down and pickup any clumps of stragglers. If it's near dark, I'll wait until dark to close them up and take them home. If they don't have a queen they will rear one. I seldom see the queen, but sometimes I do.
The few times I have spotted a queen during removal she was on the comb before I dismantled it. If you found a very small queen she is probably a virgin resulting from an emergency cell of an older larvae,but queens are MB's specialty-what do ya think Mike?
the best way to remove the bee's is with a bee-vac before you start cutting the comb, it is hard to find the queen on most removals, I would say 90% of the time the queen will leave the comb and be on the wood somewhere with a lot of the others bee's, I like to vacuum the bee's off first so they don't get in the honey when you cut the comb, honey comb always make a mess.. you might have left the queen if you didn't get all the bee's from the sides of the walls... but like mb said put the frames with brood and let them make a queen if you didn't get her, that's always a way to find out if you got the queen....
the more removals you do you will see a bee-vac is priceless, if it wasn't for my bee-vac, I would have not gotten quit a few queens.....
The bee-vac sounds so good it almost makes wish I could still do removals. All those I did were done before the bee-vac was created.
I use to do it the hard way--just like Hi-Tech did.
my first removal was done without a bee-vac, but after that I made my own and love it, it makes it so much easier.....
>The bee-vac sounds so good it almost makes wish I could still do removals. All those I did were done before the bee-vac was created.
I use to do it the hard way--just like Hi-Tech did.
I have two bee vacs. I prefer to do it the hard way.
Update - After our sticky mess, we left the bees to hopfully regroup in the hive body we left there. I went back every day but it seems like most of the bees died or left and there are not many still there. No bees in the hive body where we tied up the brood. They are hanging out where the comb used to be.
I will be going back tonight and using a bee vac to get the rest. There is no queen and they have been queenless for a week. I guess I killed her.
Question.... There is probably less than 500 - 1000 bees left. Can I just add them to an existing hive or do I have to do the newspaper thing first?
Just shake and let take.
Hi-tech, some queens are more shy or smarter or perhaps both. When searching for her, she will be where the most bees are on the brood comb.
I use my bee vac when I need to. I find it works best on hives with large numbers, but if the hive can be dealt with without one, I just cut the comb out and place it in the hive body. About the mess, I remove the honey comb first, then brood comb, but it does'nt always go this way. If for some reason, by cutting the honey comb, you will spill onto brood, then cut out the brood first. With so few bees, you can do what Brian suggested. Have fun.
Oh my gosh! The bee vac was incredible! I used a pillowcase as a liner inside and I think i had almost all of them live. I had the suction way down but it worked like a champ! I really wish i could have gotten the queen or some brood. They are very black bees and are just what I want to get more of. I gave them a frame of Caucasian brood but I have decided to order a feral queen from Michael Bush and go that route. Hive beetle larva covered the original tied in comb in one day.
Hopefully, I will get some pictures soon and post them....
Thanks for all of the advice!