Ferel swarm

Marcmc

I recently purchased a second hand wbc hive of a retired bee keeper he hasn't kept bees in nearly 2 years. When i went to collect hive it was full of bees. He is sure that there is no frames inside only natural comb, bow will i move bees to new hive a d save as much comb as possible. I was thinking of getting foundationless frames and cutting comb and fixing it to frsmes with rubber bands or strings. Any ideas appreciated

Flipperdipper

Looks like a messy job but seems to work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s00MVmhTjDY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2-JjchvjQg

Marcmc

Ye i was thinking something like that its messy. I wonder if i should vet a few frames of brood just incase

bpmurray

All frames you get in Ireland are foundationless - you have to put foundation in them.

Have you looked in the hive? If there were frames already, the combs may well be nice and straight. However, if there were none, it'll be all over the place. In that case, to move the hive into a well-structured brood box, try the following. You'll need:

• an empty brood box or at least a separate box to hold things while you work;
• a feeder of some kind that isn't too tall - a rapid feeder is fine, but don't put the cup part on, only the lid
• Rubber bands
• Foundation to fill the rest of the frames
• A sharp knife
• A serrated knife
• Your hive tool

Wait until it's warm enough - probably in the next week or so. Carefully cut out the comb using your knives and hive tool. If the comb contains honey, put it in the feeder. If the comb contains brood, put it in the frame and hold it in place using the rubber bands. Put empty comb to one side. Continue until all the brood is in frames and all the honey is in the feeder. Of course, during this process, when you see the queen, keep her in a safe place until everything is ready - you can also mark & clip her if you want.

Scrape the inside of the hive to remove the ends of the wild comb so that you have nice clean sides. Put the brood on the new frames into the box. Put frames with new foundation on either side of the brood. Release the queen. Put the crown board in place, and place the feeder over the hole - you can squish the honey to make sure it fits and to release the honey from the comb. Put an empty super over the feeder and put the roof over this.

In a few days, the honey should be gone and the new frames should be drawn. You may want to feed some 1:1 syrup to encourage growth at this stage, or simply put frames into the super with a queen excluder over the brood box.


BTW don't depend on US YouTube videos: they have different bees, different plants, different weather, different laws.

Marcmc

I was actually thinking of a new brood box on top of existing hive and let them move up for the space when queen moves put excluder underneath and pray bees will follow

brianmc

Marcmc wrote: »

I was actually thinking of a new brood box on top of existing hive and let them move up for the space when queen moves put excluder underneath and pray bees will follow

Good plan! No praying needed.

Once the brood has all emerged from the bottom box (max 24 days after the queen is confined to the top box) - separate the boxes and reassemble with just the new box. Go through the old box cutting out comb and just shake off any bees that are on it, into the hive.

Apiarist

Marcmc wrote: »

I was actually thinking of a new brood box on top of existing hive and let them move up for the space when queen moves put excluder underneath and pray bees will follow

Good plan. I did same when moving from a national brood box to a commercial box. Takes time, but no mess.

bpmurray

Marcmc wrote: »

I was actually thinking of a new brood box on top of existing hive and let them move up for the space when queen moves put excluder underneath and pray bees will follow

Definitely the best solution, assuming you can find the queen - this is called a bailey comb exchange.

Since it's likely to be a maze of comb, the best solution is to just put the brood box directly on top with no excluder. Feed them, and they'll draw the comb in the new upper box. The queen will move up and once you have eggs up above, add the excluder. Once the brood below has all emerged, you can remove the bottom box. Watch out for congestion - if you have 2 brood boxes, it's likely that the colony will explode in size over the next few weeks, so be prepared to put the old brood box back on, cleaned up and with new frames. Or , of course, put supers on and see how much honey they can bring home.

One thing to be careful about: when you put on the excluder, go back a few days later to confirm the queen's up above by checking for eggs in the upper box. If there aren't, remove the excluder and wait for her to go up.

Markcheese

brianmc wrote: »

Good plan! No praying needed.

Once the brood has all emerged from the bottom box (max 24 days after the queen is confined to the top box) - separate the boxes and reassemble with just the new box. Go through the old box cutting out comb and just shake off any bees that are on it, into the hive.

If you can limit the amount of space she has to lay new brood in by careful trimming you'd probably speed things up a bit...
But of a result getting a hive too....

Marcmc

It was good luck even the guy selling was shocked