Well I’ve given you the best advice, so that your colony does make it. I for one will be disappointed if your bees don’t make it.
Sometimes the best advice can be what we don’t want to hear, so we pretend it wasn’t given, then turn back to good old fashioned “luck”. Then we tell ourselves that bees have been around for millions of years, “they know best”.
Justin, good for you reaching out to the forum for advice on your situation.
You’ve been given solid suggestions from very experienced beekeepers. Unfortunately, it looks like you’re not in a position to follow Jeff’s advice with no access to frames of brood.
I’d be surprised if these bees make it. I’ll offer two suggestions for next season:
With education and preparation you’ll find beekeeping deeply rewarding, no luck required.
Mike
I think that @Rodderick lives in that Central Coast area. I absolutely agree with the nuc idea. I’m not sure how prices are down there, however I’m only selling the odd 5 frame nuc up here for $140 (in the clients brood box). You wouldn’t bother with a package if prices are that low down there.
Yeah okay, if these girls dont make it ill definitely search for Nucs next season.
Where about are you located as id happily drive a few hours if @Rodderick doesnt have any
I’m in Buderim Qld. You can find those particulars by clicking on my avatar. We always check where in the world people live, when attempting to answer a question. I know that Rod lives in Two Creeks, plus last time I checked, he had 30 traditional hives plus a flow hive. He might get back to us after I tagged him. He’s a nice bloke & very helpful.
Yea… it happens … I had a frame resting on the ground against the hive and I knocked it over.
Some squashed bees were evident after I picked the frame up… 
I am still going, up to 50plus hives now… its all getting a bit crazy! … lost my hives in the mountains behind Wyong and Newcastle due to the Varroa extermination orders… but I have other sites across the Hawkesbury and Kuringai regions… they have varroa now too… beetle larva will eat your brood, they are nasty little buggers. I now keep my hives compact and full of bees to keep the pests at bay. Happy to answer any questions but it seems like you have some good advice from Jeff and Mike.
Hi Rod, we haven’t heard from the author of this topic for a little while. He lives on the Central Coast. I suggested that he try to purchase a frame of sealed & emerging brood. He didn’t seem to warm to the idea, as far as I could tell. I mentioned you because I thought you might be able to help him, if he decided to take that advice.
Sorry to hear that you’ve lost those hives. I’m not looking forward to varroa making it up my way. It’ll be time for me to downsize, when that happens.
Hey everyone, yeah been pretty busy last 2 weeks but have been monitoring the hive closely.
After all this occured i took some pretty drastic measures which involved cutting out all infecting comb (80% of coomb), removing a frame, placing beetle traps in the hive (oil traps) and putting a baited trap under the hive with the bottom board, had to physically scoop out all the dead brood from the bottom (thousands of bees) which broke my heart.
Have checked baited trap every 2 days since and it has killed ~50 beetles, just this afternoon i decided to go into the hive for a full inspection and can say gladly that for the first time ever there was 1. No beetles in or around the baited trap, no beetles under the inner cover, no beetles inside the hive or on any comb and most importantly bees have re drawn 3 full frames which are full of caoped brood, and bee lavae that is swelling up nicely ready to be capped in the coming days!
So from certain demise my colony has turned a corner which is fantastic, ive removed one of the oil traps as it only had 2 beetles and the other had 10 so i thought one was enough, the baited trap will stay under the hive indefinitely as i think this has been working well, the beetles seem to favor the bait over the brood…
Im not going to install the 8th frame back in as they havent filled the others yet, when they get stronger i might opt to add another brood box (just not sure on what month this would be ideal in or if i just wait till they fill this box etc)
Thanks for all your comments and help hope its only more positive things from here!
I saw a bit of spam in the thread, but it made me curious as to how you were going now. It is a great catch @JeffH from the observations on the corflute.
The corflute in the bottom slot can provide a bit more space for trap for the beetles to fall into, there are some old threads of using tin foil roasting trays in place of the slider as an oil trap, to catch and kill SHB.
It sounds like it was identified in the nick of time.
Hey,
Yeah all is good now, ive got a full brood box and i have been using a baited trap on the core flute slider for the last 2 months with greag success. Its too small for the bees to get in but the beetles go in, eat the bait and die before they can lay any eggs. It also helps now that the population of bees has almost trippled.