I made a cutout monday 5 days ago. All seemed to go real well, good gentle bees, and I got the queen. I have been checking them often, this morning before going to work checked them and they were doing house cleaning like crazy...all seemed to be well. This afternoon when I got home checked them and they were gone. Brood, honey, and a hundred or so very young bees were all that were left. And robbing was going on like crazy.
I need to know if I can put the frames of brood and honey along with the young bees onto my other hive.
I have the enterance screened over to stop the robbing tomorrow.
Any suggestions help on this would be very much appreciated.
Thanks
Dennis
Hello
In your case i would unite them with your strongest colony and every thing should go fine but i would do the newspaper method of uniting. That way your strong hive scent will mix with the other hive or you caan spread out the brood with your other hives they may take the young bees as thier own just a thought.
Tom
How often did you go into the hive. Perhaps they left because of too much intrusion?
Sounds to me that the bees from the cutout didn't like their new abode and absconded. Feral bees seem to have an aversion to new equipment. I've found that using older woodenware or scortching the inside of the boxes prior to doing the cutout enhances the chances of retaining the swarm. A second consideration is how you handle and incorporate the brood comb from the cutout into their new home.
I did not open the hive after i put the bees in, I only observed the bees at the entrance.
Now I am wondering about the comb handling. I placed it in shallow frames with rubber bands.....all thecomb was the perfect hight for shallow frames....but now I am wondering did I put it in upside down.
My most urgent question is if I put the comb on my other hive will the bees accept the emerging brood....there is quite a lot. Also, lots of pollen and honey.
I have strained about 40lbs of honey that i will feed back to the bees.
I am also wondering could a robbing frenzy have caused the bees to leave
Well many lessons have and will be learned from this first cutout, as I ponder the situation and get good advice on here.
I built a bee vaccuum and it worked great.....the next time I use it maybe with a little more thought and luck everything else will go great as well.
If you had experienced robbing the cappings would be torn and a lot of dead bees would be evident. My guess is that the bees just preferred the pre-cutout abode and went looking for another one.
Another hive will accept the emerging brood but I would suggust a series of sugar shakes due to possible infestation of feral stock. A series this time of year isn't a bad idea anyway.
I put the brood in the other hive, along with the newly emerged bees. I srayed them with sugar water with a little vinalla.
There were no dead bees to speak of inside or outside the hive.
I plan to give them a few days to settle down, and treat them with powdered sugar a few times at 10 day intervals.
thanks
Dennis