Screned Bottom Board uses

[gaucho10]

I started using SBB last year for the first time.  I know that there are lots of posts questioning SBB.  I thought I just might throw this in as another use for a SBB.  This week I picked up a swarm that weight about 4 lbs. :-D  Yesterday I did a cutout and removed a recently established swarm from a home's ceiling/roof air space (not big enough to be considered crawlable) :roll:
The cutout was a small 2 lb. of bees.  Non of the comb could be considered as usable for it was thin, week and unproductive (meltdown!).  I doubt very much that the queen survived as most of the colony ended up getting vacuumed up.

Now for the part about the SBB.... :-P   When I got home, instead of using the newspaper method to join the bees I used the SBB as a buffer.  I first installed the SBB directly above the previously caught swarm.  I then installed the deep brood chamber which I used to vacuum up the second colony of bees.  I sealed the entrance on the SBB so that the second group of bees could not fly out.  Directly above the brood chamber I installed a medium supper of sealed honey from last season.  I then sealed the top with a screened mesh cover for ventilation.  The bees in the top section now have room and food but can't fly out.  Since I don't know if the queen survived I will leave it in this fashion for several days to see if there is any egg laying activity on the upper section.  Today I removed the entrance block and now the top bees can go about their way.  If they intermix with the bottom group then that's fine.  In a few days I will check the upper section for brood.  If no brood then I will remove the SBB and join both colonies together.

[Brian D. Bray]

Sounds like a cool solution on an oft encountered problem with cutouts and small swarms.