Hiving a wild colony

[Ribster]

A swarm got by unnoticed this summer and I now have a "wild" colony in the top of a dogwood about 30 ft. up.

I haven't had to hive bees once they've already started making a home there (about 4 sheets of comb so far.

I need to know if my thinking is correct here:

I have a small amount of queenless bees I set aside with some brood and honey in a single medium. I plan to climb up an extension ladder to cut the comb out and shake the bees into another medium (did I mention that 2 large hives are on the ground with my ladder between them? :( I better not fall)

The plan is to put newspaper over the top of the queenless medium and place these bees in their medium super on top of it and cover it.

Does this sound right. I just wish I were dealing with a swarm.

I plan on loosing all my field workers as they fly back to the old location. This isn't too much of a concern, because I'm really after that queen. Should I simply rob that hive of the queen so that I can use it in the other hive and leave that wild hive to maybe get another queen before winter? There's probably 2 lbs of bees in this wild hive.

Sorry to be so long winded. Thank you for your help.
=========
Jonathan Murray

[Michael Bush]

There is there comb in the branches? Are they inside the tree or outside?

My biggest piece of advice is that you need to be ABSOLUTELY sure you can be 30 feet up on a ladder with a bunch of bees stinging you and calmly climb back down without panicing. 30 feet up a ladder is not the place to panic.

If the combs are on the limb, I'd cut the limb, haul them down, cut brood out and tie it in frames, scrap the honey (put it in a bucket and crush and strain it).

I'd also be wearing a FULL bee suit with a zip on veil.

[george dilley]

i just started beekeeping this past year and work with a beekeeper of 18 years i got him started in not tying the combs into frames but what he now does is to drill holes in top and bottom bars and insert a 50 mm nail into these holes to hold the comb in place it seems to work better from what i have been told

[Ribster]

Thank you for the replies. The nail idea sounds interesting. I think I'll try it. The combs are still pretty small, but I'll try to salvage them.

[Michael Bush]

If you have any doubts about panicing at the top of a 30 foot ladder walk away now. The bees are only worth about $60 and that's in the spring. Now they are worth much less. Your hospital bill, should you panic, will be much more. smile.gif

[Tom Miller]

Hi Ribster:
First I would suit up with full protection, climb the ladder and get a close look at how well the comb is fastened and how many limbs I would have to cut and determine whether or not I could decend the ladder with the bees.
Assuming you decide you can decend safely with the bees, I would prepare an empty hive with empty frames {to accept the combs} and position it {with the frames removed} on the ground near the ladder. Climb up to the bees, spray them with water from a spray bottle to minimize flight, cut them out and decend with them.
If anything went wrong while on the ladder I would pitch the bees/combs/limbs at the empty hive below, decend and try to find the queen and shake her into the hive.
If you make it down with the bees ok, install the combs in the frames using rubber bands and/or nails the same as for a removal from a wall. If you have available drawn comb frames use them to fill up the rest of the super install a cover and position the hive under the tree as close to directly under where you removed the swarm as possible and leave till dark.
If you have the queen, the field bees should find the hive and most will be in by dark so you may not loose them. If all goes well and the queen stays put, in a couple of days you should be able to move the hive to a permanent location and combine with your queenless bees.
Hope this helps.

Tom Miller

[Brent Bean]

Sounds like you have had a lot of good advice, one suggestion take a Nuc up the ladder with a rope attached if you can wrap the rope around a close by branch and suspend it close by the feral hive and cut and place them into frames prepared then lower the Nuc and bees down with the rope. This will keep both hands free ascending and descending the ladder, and will cut the amount of trips up and down the ladder.

[Ribster]

Allright. The bees are down.

I cut the branches below, so that I could carry the branch down. I smoked them and sprayed some honey/water on them before finally breaking the branch.

I shook them off into the med. and saw the queen as i combined them with the other hive on the newspaper.

Now there are fifty or so angry foragers wondering what the heck happened to their home. I'm afraid to open up the top portion of the combined hive due to fears about the queen leaving or members of the much stronger queenless hive getting at her too soon. Any suggestions on this subject would be appreciated.

I don't know if I'll do that again. They are so much easier to "herd" while in swarming mode. I need to pay closer attention and prevent my swarms from getting settled.

Thank you for your help!

[Ribster]

I forgot to mention. They were very calm. I just went out in a t-shirt and shorts (while barefoot) like I normally check my hives.

I was planning for a retreat and suit up if they proved too agressive. Fortunately I wasn't stung.

My g/f only wishes she had the ordeal on video tape even though things did go as smoothly as possible. This certainly isn't the first time she's seen me do something like this. At least the homemade 2-cycle motorcycle is on tape.

[Michael Bush]

Just leave them alone until they settle in. By tomorrow those foragers will find the new hive if it's withing a hundred yards or so.

[drobbins]

I wanna hear about the homemade 2-cycle motorcycle :eek:

Dave

[Ribster]

It was a bicycle with a large 70's 2 cycle engine on it. I'm not sure if it was a full 2 horse or not. I attached a centrifugal clutch to the drive shaft and wanted to use the bike's 16 gear system as a transmission.

To make a long story short the "transmission" never worked out. I was stuck with one gearing. It couldn't climb a small slope, but boy it could fly on level ground. Of course you needed a looonnnggg level stretch to get it up to a good speed. The video even includes a county police car pulling up to check on the park we were testing it in (around 10 pm). My buddy cut the camera off just as you could see the cop laughing as he pulled by us. Never said a word. I don't think he could hold back the laughter to say one if he wanted to.

Just one of the many contraptions I've obsessed over. I like building things like that for fun.

[SilverFox]

My kind of person. LOL :D

[Got Honey?]

Why didn't the gears work? I've been saving an old chain saw mortor to use for that very purpose!

[Ribster]

It really had to do with the mounting of the engine. Those 2 cycle engines can rotate in either direction and still run, but the starter cord would have to be wound by hand each time to start in in reverse. The spring that rewound the starter cord wouldn't mount the other way and the gear that engages it wouldn't function either. With an engine as fickle as that one I certainly needed to be able to make multiple starting attempts.

Due to this, I needed to put the rear wheel on backwards and have the rear sprockets welded to the wheel (i needed to pedal backwards to go fowards in this case).

As long as you have an engine that turns the way you want it to, or can rig it that way you're all right. I closed up the side of the frame using 3/4 in. plywood and mounted the engine through and to the plywood. The plywood was held in place by metal pipe straps(the ones with the holes in them) that were bolted to the frame.

I'll try to find some pictures if you're interested.

You need to gear it down a ton. Those engines (as you probably know) have almost no low rpm torque. In retrospect welding on a huge gokart sprocket to the front pedal sproket set would have been the better idea. This may be to heavy for the engine though. I was also using a large gokart chain since it fit the sprocket on the clutch and I sure didn't feel like filing that down.

It's a worthwile venture if you're looking to waste a little money and confront endless problems in the name of fun.

[Robert Hawkins]

Dude, that's hilarious.

thanks,

Hawk