Simple first cut-out

Beekeeping - Basics
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Hi guys, I was planning on doing a split with my hive so I bought a second one in readiness. I have since read that a split shouldn’t be done to a hive in its first year so I had to re-think the plan. I have put my Flow super on instead and the bees are busy inspecting it.

I heard of a swarm that had set up home in a Lavender Bush and had made comb with brood and honey stores. The owners of the property wanted it gone so I decided to have a go at my first cut-out seeing as I had a hive to fill.

I set off out with my suit, smoker and frames made up with rubber bands to get me a free hive. I don’t have photos of the process as it was all a bit rushed and messy but I managed to get 2 frames of broken brood banded into my frames and into my box. I filled up the rest of the box with wax foundation frames.

The bees were all over the Lavender Bush and starting to go deep so I took a plastic storage box, placed it under the bees and shook the branches hard so the bees fell into it. I then poured them into my brood box along with quite a bit of Lavender. I did this a couple of times and probably had 80% of the bees. I didn’t see the Queen but hopefully have her.
I cleaned up and left my hive there until dark when I went back and retrieved it in the back of my ute, all foragers returned.

That was yesterday. Today I have taken out most of the Lavender, transferred a frame of emerging brood from my existing hive and put some sugar syrup at the entrance. Hopefully all will be well, I’ll just have to wait and see. It’s been an exciting couple of days for a newbie.

Just thought I’d share this experience with you. :grinning:

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Look at you go :+1:, good on you for having a crack. Hope it all works out for you WileE.

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That sounds like a stroke of genius. If you got the queen, they will get a boost from the frame. If there are any eggs or very young larvae in the frame, they have a chance to make a queen in case you didn’t get her. I am hesitant about entrance feeders in general, but in particular with new colonies. I feel that there is a chance that they will encourage robbing at a time when there are not enough bees to defend the colony. I would prefer an in hive top feeder - either inverted jar, bucket/pail, or a miller type feeder with floats.

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Thanks Dawn, you are right of course. I did notice some robbing going on.
I have changed the front feeder for a jar top feeder this morning. :grinning:

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Yum, lavender honey :slight_smile:

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That is one impressive stand! Is it repurposed Karri?

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It’s repurposed Jarrah. They are old electricity pole x-arms plained and stained. :+1:

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It is a beautiful timber. When I saw the dimensions of your timber and the old bore holes I thought Jarrah but the colour had me tricked. You are fortunate to be able to access it.

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Unfortunately this hive was queenless. The extra frame I put in must not have had any eggs to make emergency cells.
Back to the drawing board for me :neutral_face:

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Ok, here’s an update on this hive. It turned out to be queenless so I put another frame of brood in as a last resort thinking that if it didn’t work I would just combine them with my other hive.
Well I checked them 10 days later and there was 1 capped queen cell in the middle of the frame of brood. Thank god! I worked out that she was due to emerge on Christmas day so I left it alone until few days after Christmas to see if she had emerged. I saw her in all her glory when I inspected. Woohoo!
I’ve left her alone since then knowing that she had to build up her strength and go out on her mating flight to the DCA.
Today I did an inspection and we have brood! I even saw her laying in one of the cells!
I’m so happy that it’s all worked out from a hive which I’d just about given up on. The girls are building more comb and everything is looking sweet! :honeybee::honeybee::honeybee::+1::+1:

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Well done Craig!! Hopefully mine will be as smooth as yours!!

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