Only new to beekeeping (Oct 2024) I decided to accept the challenge helping my friend to get rid of the bees in her backyard water fountain (into my 2nd hive). She said they had only been there a few weeks. The challenges were that I had not done this before, no one knew how the water fountain came apart and the bees had been there for way longer than few weeks. I also only brought my nuc box that I got my bees in.
Turns out it was a lot harder than I thought and it took a lot longer!
After finally getting the top off the fountain, there were far too many bees for my nuc box, Luckily my friend had some very sturdy large boxes I was able to use.
After getting the bees home and placing them into my hive I was able to fill 7 out of the 10 frames with their comb and the other 3 frames were about 1/4 full. I have checked them every week looking for the queen or signs of her and today 22 days later finally think there is a queen as there is new brood capped and larvae. No drone brood. I have started feeding them because the fat boys that came with them have tried to eat them out of house and home. All looking good at this point. I have learnt a lot and mostly that I probably won’t do it again.
