I have the opportunity to take a large pile of free gear & bees

Started by Bill W., April 24, 2008, 02:51:39 PM

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Bill W.

My wife works in a nursing home and has become good friends with a woman whose husband was a beekeeper and passed away two years ago.  When she found out we keep bees, she asked us if we would take everything and "save her husband's bees."

Well, further conversation lead to my meeting her daughter at her home yesterday, where I found eight hives set up in the back yard.  Apparently, no one has opened them for at least two years, probably longer.  To my surprise, two hives are going strong.  The other six are big messes.  I think the old fellow struggled to do the work on them as his health worsened and some of the boxes are rotten beyond fixing, many were missing frames and the bees have drawn crazy frames all over the place.  Most have capped honey in them and are now infested with ants, wasps, and moths.

When I opened the second hive, a very unhappy colony of paper wasps reminded me that wasp stings are way worse than bee stings.

In addition to the set up hives, there is a big pile of gear that has been weathering outdoors.  I went through it all and, in total, I'd say if I assume a hive consists of 2 brood boxes and 2 supers, he once had enough for 18 hives and I can probably salvage enough to make 12.

My concern is, of course, disease.  As a beginner, I probably don't recognize all the problems that could be here.

Every frame is drawn, but some have been sitting in uncovered boxes in the rain, probably for years.

He mostly used wax foundation and it looks like moths have set up shop and eaten large sections away.

Some frames have cells with a nasty dark liquid in them.

Mold is all over the place.

A couple frames have broken down comb and little fossilized brood are still sticking up.  It looks a bit like chalkbrood pictures I have seen, but it is hard to tell with the comb eaten away.

Most frames are just old, dark, and dingy looking, but with nothing in the cells.

About a quarter of the boxes have been scorched on the inside.  I take it that is a bad sign...

Here is my current plan:

Take it all, evaluate what is structurally salvagable and what isn't.  Burn what isn't.  Sand and paint.

Remove all the previously used comb and burn it, since I probably don't have the ability to tell if it is safe or not. 

Cook the frames in the oven at 300 for an hour and then put in new foundation.

Then the live hives:

Move them somehow.  They are very heavy, so I might have to remove them in sections if that is possible.

Get the bees to rebuild one box at a time.  They are basically unworkable with the missing frames and comb built all over the place.  Maybe get a fume board, drive them out of a box, put on a new box, and repeat until they have rebuilt a new hive on frames?

Hope that I don't introduce disease from either the live hives or the gear.

At the price, it is probably worth the risk, though I'll be really bummed if I end up infecting my bees with something.

Any thoughts/critiques?

Scadsobees

Well, the plan sounds fine.  I don't think that cooking the frames in the oven will do all that much, AFB needs higher temps to kill it.  That is what the scorching is from.  Very often beekeepers will buy used equipment and scorch the insides.

But if the dead hives had AFB, then probably the live hives do.   You'll want to scrutinize the living brood the closest.

QuoteA couple frames have broken down comb and little fossilized brood are still sticking up.  It looks a bit like chalkbrood pictures I have seen, but it is hard to tell with the comb eaten away.

This is the part that I'd be most cautious with.  The chalkbrood that I've seen doesn't look like brood sticking up, but you could be describing something differently than what I'm imagineing.  If it looks like little toungues sticking out, then that could be a problem.  Or little black scales stuck in the cells.

If you can, find a local experienced beekeeper or inspector to go through them with/for you.

Other than the caution, free bees are always a good thing! :)

Rick
Rick

Kathyp

i think you have a good plan.  i have gotten used stuff and you just have to be careful to look closely and clean well.  foundation is easy to replace.  even if you have to buy new frames, they don't cost to much.  i have gotten them in lots of 100's for a few bucks.  people always seem to buy extra frames and not use them.
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Speech in Kansas, December 1859

HAB

Thats how we got started.  Just inspect, discard all rot and obvious problems, clean, clean, and clean.  Did I mention clean?

trapperbob

If you are not sure what you are looking at as far as diseases are concerned find a beek or inspector that does if everything after that looks good you may have the start of some fine survivor stock since they have not been treated and seem to be strong. Just sort every thing out and discard the bad stuff and salvage the rest. The important thing is to make sure it is safe or the bees you already have will suffer the consequenses.

Brian D. Bray

Your plan is sound.  I would recommend going over the insides of each box with a blow torch just to be on the safe side--the bees actually seem to like woor "cured" that way to plain wood.  Just save the best and burn anything that looks like it needs TLC.  Aged equipment, especially frames, have inherent problems.  The Wax, as you've noted, should all be burnt, it isn't even worth trying to melt or render if old as you describe.  I would do walk away splits on the live hives for transportation purposes and would leave them that way.  Get queens for the splits or let them make there own.  If they haven't been tended to for several years you essentially have feral hives--the best chance of mite resistance stock available and so I would recommend the walk away splits and let them raise their own queens.
Life is a school.  What have you learned?   :brian:      The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!

debay

Very similar to my situation. Except Im a third party recipient. I knew an elderly man who kept bees and actually spoke with him a few times about getting started but never did. The elderly man passed away and I never got back into the research. Then I went to visit an old codger buddy of my dads and lo and behold he was just getting 4 hives started from mail order packages. I expressed an interest and he bought my bees (exchanged some labor for that part) and gave me 2 deep and 2 shallow supers to get started with. I asked him where he got his stuff from and he told me he got from an estate sale......from  the elderly man's family that had died. So full circle I am waiting for my bees to show up, I have a stack of supers complete with new frames and foundation waiting to be bee'd up.

I mention this story because we had to scape and brush as much old wax off the supers as we could find, patch any areas that were chipped or cracked that could allow a predator insect in, torch them, brush them again, and paint the outsides. I didnt know why we were torching them, but I got to play with fire so it was all good. Now I know and I am glad we did it. We made sure that anytime we hit a patch of old wax that we made it boil till it almost dried up and then we'de scrape it out. After we torched them, we used a wire scrub pad and brushed the soot/ash/dried up wax off the supers. My old codger buddy let me use a few of the older frames that werent damaged or showing signs of bugs. We made new frames, bleached them (just to be safe) all and when they dried we put foundation on them. He has enough stuff that I could go back and build about 4-5 more hives, and enough frame parts and foundation (new in box) to supply a commercial aviary. If your gonna use the old stuff, I suggest you do clean it, bleach it, scorch it, and inspect it before you use it.  if you have signs of the big killers like AFB, you might consider just having a bonfire.

sounds like you got a good deal though. Good luck with it!!

Michael Bush

I would try to find an experienced beekeeper or, if you state provides one, a bee inspector to look at them.  AFB leaves scale and if the hive is still going or recently deceased you have the ropy brood.  Check for AFB.  Odds are the dead ones died from Varroa, but it would be good to know.
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Bill W.

Well, the deed is done.  I went over the hives carefully, looking in any suspect cells.  Where I wasn't sure if I might have an AFB indicator, I pulled out my microbiology text book and spore stained some slides to see what I could see.  I got nothing that looked like AFB (although there is certainly quite a bacterial soup in there).  I am pretty certain there was some chalkbrood, but only from one hive - I burned the frames to be safe.  There were also lots of signs of starvation (tons of bees headfirst into empty cells).  I also think I found some SHB larvae, but I need to find a reference to confirm that.

I broke out all the foundation on site into garbage bags, which I will burn. 

And, we moved the live hives early this morning.  That was an adventure.  We decided to move them intact and decide how to split later (thanks Brian for that suggestion, as we probably will split).  I may have overdone it, but the result was a very uneventful move.  I wrapped the whole hive front to back and top to bottom in duct tape, then placed two 5' 2x4s on top and tied the whole thing together with two ratchet straps.  At that point, it was easy to lift the whole hive using the 2x4 handles and everything held together nicely.  We found one of the hives was nearly twice as heavy as the other, so one of those hives may not be as healthy as I thought.

When I unblocked the entrance of the light hive at its new home, I only got a trickle of bees.  Gee, I thought, this is pretty easy.  Then I unblocked the heavy hive.  Heh.  I have never seen so many angry bees emerge so fast from a hive in my life.  I booked it out of there and they chased me a good 150 feet.  Well, at least I know they're healthy.

Thanks for all the advice.  I have a lot of cleanup to do.

HAB

Wow, Sounds like your off to a good start.  Wishing you all the luck with your new found prize. :)

Shizzell

Bill,

First of all, it sounds like your doing fine.

About this being easy or hard, thats up to you. A lot of beekeepers invest a lot of time and energy into making this hard and studying every part of the hive and methods. Others simply leave them go and have fun with the other aspects. I'm not saying either are right, but your going to have to find where you sit. Its all up to you =)

Jake

Bill W.

Ha!  Well, if past performance is the best indicator of future performance, I will make things really complicated before I figure out how to make them simple.  ;)

Shizzell


Cindi

Bill, good job, I would have loved to see you running for your life, hee, hee!!!  Beautiful and most wonderful day in our great lives.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

poka-bee

Bill you got your areobic workout!  Now thats some incentive to jog!!! :evil:
I'm covered in Beeesssss!  Eddie Izzard