Trapping advice in brood box

Maybe I will review my destination but moving it every day (at night?) is no problems either and I can even put my trolley with 4 wheels underneath to make the job easier! As for the orientation of my hive it is facing south at the moment (I am in Southern Hemi) as this was the orientation of the tree opening. The books all say North or North East so is this important or do I turn it gradually or just all at once when it is in its home position? Also the sun is up now but how long will I wait to open the bucket lid in front of my brood box? I have left a small container of my wild honey harvest scraps in front of the box too thinking this may also help things along.

No more than 30 degrees per day, but I wouldnā€™t combine a horizontal movement of the hive with a compass rotation. Give them a few weeks to adjust to one or the other before changing the plane of movement. :smile:

Hi, it looks like the queen is on the tree. You better check on what you have in the box to make sure the beetles arenā€™t laying in the brood. Thatā€™s provided that beetles are in your area. Lets see what happens with the 80% you got in the bucket. I would have got a frame of open brood & hung it on a nail, resting over the bees on the tree. After an hour I would have gently removed it & put it into a box to see what happens. More than likely the queen would be on the frame of brood. If that was the case, the bees would all go into the box. If not, just repeat that process.

It looks to me like most of the bees would be on the tree. Even without the possibility of shb damage, the brood you saved could be chilled & not worth saving.

Found the queen and put in a container inside the brood box for her minions to chew through. Lots of activity in the brood box and beetles not an issue around here and none anywhere. Most of tree cluster now either in or around front of box.

Main question now is where to locate the queen excluder as I have read conflicting advice. Bottom or top of brood box?

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Well done on finding the queen. Make sure everything is ok with the brood before worrying about the queen excluder. However, when the time comes, I would put it above the brood box.

Sadly I think that thereā€™s too much information out there. Look for a good mentor & learn from your own experiences.

Everybody wants to get it right, right from the word go. I donā€™t think it works out like that.

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Working on a local mentor and happy to learn by my mistakes! I have put the flow hive lid on as wet weather is expected in a day or so but Iā€™m not sure about the lid position and if I need to leave a gap at the front so they can get out or just slide it towards the back so there is no gap? Also in my situation with this feral colony is it best to block the hole in the inner cover or leave it open?

I would block it, with taped down fly screen if you want the ventilation.

Update on the SHBs which I found tonight when I removed the corflute board after leaving them alone for several days. Lots of little larvae and a couple of beetles! Put them in a sealed bucket with water in it as not sure what to do first up but hope th critters will drown! Makes me wonder if some of the salvaged brood is no good but not confident in making this call. However, from all other outside appearances the hive seems to be going well. Building up to a thorough inspection tomorrow but some tips on what to look for would be great.

Youā€™ll need to thoroughly inspect the brood for areas where the shb larvae is coming from. Put all the infested comb in a bucket with a lid tight & put it in the hot sun. That will kill them.

You need to make sure that there is a bee space right around the remaining comb & that there is a really good covering of worker bees over it to stop the beetles from laying more eggs. That might mean that you need to reduce the amount of comb for the size of the colony to manage.

Feel free to phone me any time. My ph. no. is in my profile. Iā€™m a bit of an expert when it comes to SHBs:)

Thanks Jeff will inspect in a few hours and also put Cedars shb trap into place.

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Youā€™re welcome. good luck with that.

With New Years Excitement I post. As some know I lost my hive to wax moth and was devastated. I have been given a lead on a hive under someones house. I am very new to bees and am bugging my bee friend to help me because this is so way over my head. The hive is at least 3 x 5 ft under the house. So, advice is welcomed?? We are setting up some frames with wire and I have some good comb from the hive left on one frame. I have never tried to capture a hive and I know my friend failed in his vacuum attempt :slight_smile: . Any make sure I do ideas. The plan was to bring hive over and try find queen or as I read at least comb with some brood. Not sure how to deal with all the honey that will be there. But the main thing is to safely move it to my area which is dryer and warmer and about 7 miles away. We have plenty to forage as my citrus and coconut are going off now. Did read the feed and looking for any tricks. Will take photos as we go. Happy New Year.

How are the bees doing?

My bees are doing pretty well I think but have not bothered them for nearly 2 weeks. Last time I looked they were really thick on about 4 frames that used comb from my cutout job. As a beginner I do not have too many suggestions but there are plenty of experienced people on this forum. I used rubber bands on my frames to hold in the comb pieces but it was fairly rough. I tried to harvest the honeycomb but it was not very successful and just ended up using the leftovers to give my bees a feed as apparently there is not many flowers around to pollinate at the moment. Good luck with your adventures!

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From the information that my bee mentor has given me (30+ years beekeeping with over 500 hives). You do not loose a hive to wax moth. The wax moth moves in as the colony dies out and takes over. So there would be another reason you lost your colony.

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Ideas? I have no idea. I only had 3 months and was full of bees. All I can say is the hive frames I bought were full of bees and then I added to my deep and they built 3 nice combs. Did not do too much in the 3 months I had them.
The small hive beetle was there and I did put trap. Maybe I bought an old overgrow hive that was stressed when I got it. They had lots of forage.

Did you ever see the queen, eggs or new brood? The Queen may have been killed in transport.

I had a colony last year that was a small swarm capture which was going really well, it had built out 4 frames of comb from scratch. During the first couple of months I was feeding with an entrance feeder. Good brood pattern with ample stores. I stopped feeding thinking they were set to fend for themselves during summer. Summer here there is a total fire ban so if someone smells smoke the fire brigade will be called, and rightly so, so inspections were less frequent as Iā€™d have liked. One day I noticed the entrance was quiet so I did a smokeless inspection and found no bees in the hive and wax moth silks binding the frames together. Empty! There were a few bees emerging from cells tongues out, some pollen but no honey stores at all. At the time I blamed the moth and they became enemy number one. (Come to think of it they are the only enemy over hereā€¦)
In reflection I think the bees had absconded in search of greener pastures not because of the moth but because food was not available. I had thought if they were bringing pollen, which they were, they must also be collecting nectar which I now know is not the case. They may also have been robbed over time due to the use of an entrance feeder.
The wax moth just did what they are here to do, decompose.

Having said all that I could be wrongā€¦ I frequently amā€¦ :wink:

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Sounds like they had the meat, but not the potatoes and veggies. I guess many people would leave if they couldnā€™t have both! :blush:

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That is a good question. I did not inspect this hive as I was ignorant. I thought I just had to protect it from SHB and to be honest bought it from my instructor so thought it was all good, I was more worried about adding to this overcrowded 7 frame med so as to keep them happy. I added the deep which they built 3 combs onto. I still have those combs. winter rain and winds and then it cleared I noticed that the hive swarmed as it was in my kitchen and thats when I looked and saw the devastation. Do they swarm without the Queen?