Good evening everyone. My name is Lisa and I am on a mission to save some bees. My boyfriend got at least a swarm under the eves of his back patio and was thinking of having to spray them because no bee removal people would call him back, so I sprung into action and bought a beehive to save them. I will make the, hopefully successful, transfer tomorrow morning.
I was looking for information as to how to do this with the queen, provided there is one, and found this forum so I joined it to help me along the way. I have always wanted to have my own hive and now I can. In other words I am all in now that I have spent the money on the hive and done a bunch of research on the delightful flying critters.
I have never moved nest before. Does anyone have any pointers as to the best way to do this without upsetting my bees. Thanks in advance for your input.
Welcome to the forum Lisa, I hope you also bought a bee suit and gloves. You will also need a hive tool, a smoker and some other kit if the bees stay.
You likely wonât have much time to get the swarm, they are probably resting up and scout bees are out looking for a more permanent home.
If you can get within arm reach of the swarm and use something like an egg slide to scrape the bee from under the eve into a cardboard box and then tip the bulk of them into the hive with the roof off you might have also caught the queen. Assuming you already have the hive full of frames, preferably frames that have been wired and full sheets of foundation fitted. Put the roof on the hive. In that case leave the hive as close as possible to where the bees were under the eve and any straggler bees will pick up the scent and join the other bees in the hive.
When you have the bees in the hive you can then relocate it to where you permanently want the hive. Monitor the activity at the hive entrance for a week but donât open the hive to have a look, leave them alone to settle in.
If the bees are still there after a week and assuming you have little knowledge about bee keeping I would find your local bee group and get involved there and ask for some help till you have a good understanding as to what is involved in being a good and caring bee keeper.
I would also edit your location so that others on the forum might be close enough to help or at least have an idea about your climate so you will get better advice. Just being in the USA isnât much help, ok.
Cheers
Thank you Peter. I will make the edit to my location. I bought the beginning bee keeper kit that came with two ten frame boxes, the smoker, the hat veil, gloves, and some starter smoker material but I am thinking I can just use left over hay from my horse feed. I will keep you posted here as I make the transition from eaves to box. I hope it is a successful transfer or I will have to buy bees. Is it a good idea to put some already made honey in on the frames?
Welcome.
In addition to Peters words if you search âswarmâ (the magnifying thingie top right) you will have a lot of reading on swarms and catching.
Not a good idea to put âready madeâ honey onto the frames. This can spread disease as you donât know where the honey comes from, and a lot of shop bought honey is a mix from several countries. Better to feed them sugar syrup so they can draw out the frames. Swarms usually carry enough of their own honey with them to last them a few days.
Thank you so much Gary. My boyfriend kept telling me to give them honey on the box now and that maybe they will go to it, but I had a bad feeling about doing that. Glad I listened to my gut.
I wouldnât put a frame of honey in the âbait boxâ, just frames made up with foundation, if you can get a frame of uncapped brood that would be a help but it isnât needed Lisa. Using waxed foundation will give them a good start and life easier for you with a reduced risk or wonky comb.The bees gorge on honey before the swarm so they wonât need honey for a few days.
Cheers
I got most of the nest into the bee boxes yesterday. I have to admit that I had no idea how big a colony this was. I am hoping they stay now. I do still have one little bunch that is trying to stay where I took it out of. I will work on this today or tomorrow. It was a lot of work. I had to stop and build a bee vacuum. All in all, if they stay I did a decent job, if not I will call it education and try another way to keep bees.
PS I only got stung four times through the entire ordeal. One time was because of my dumbassery, one was a mistake, and two were through the gloves that were supposed to be bee sting resistant.
