New hive from city water meter.

[Rock331]

Kind of gun shy after my last two hives. The first one I got from a phone box. They left after one day. I then bought a nuc from a good friend and another hive robbed and killed my bees. I put all my equipment up for the winter and I was going to build up my supplies during the winter time and jump back in with both feet. We I am a police officer for the City of Ardmore and it is all over city hall how crazy I am for messing with bees. I received a call from the water department yesterday asking for my help with some honey bees in a water meter. sounds like my full time job. I get told I'm crazy for being a police officer but who do they call. I was told their only choice was to poison them if I didn't get them. Well I figured with my luck with bees I could kill them for them so I agreed to get them.


Man that was a job. It was 5 this evening and 109 outside. I will be building me a Bee Vac this winter. The hive was bigger than I was expecting. I was able to salvage four frames of brood and honey. I  did not see the queen but the bees stayed in the hive.They really did not want to come out of the water meter box. I was scooping bees left and right. The lighter I was using for the smoker quit so my father had to go to the store and buy another one. When I smoked into the meter box that changed their attitude and they came out and went straight to the box. I guess they could not smell the queen until they got above the ground. After my last hive was killed and robbed I have changed up a few things. I now have a reducer in the entrance so they only have about 1.2 inches across and 3/4 high. I also put on another deep without frames and placed the two sugar feeders inside. I am going to leave them alone for a few days and check on them.

[D Coates]

Sounds like you've got it under control.  Definitely leave them be for a few days to get things sorted out and keep that entrance reducer on there.  I'm assuming you've got no flow on there so once you check on them and they've got a queen laying (look for eggs not necessarily the queen), you may want to feed them 1:1 syrup to boost numbers, increase comb and stores for overwintering.  Good luck!

[VolunteerK9]

Good catch. I am a LEO as well-even attended the Oklahoma State Horseshoeing School there in Ardmore.