Have I been robbed?

[shylock3]

A month or so ago I bought a bunch of old deeps and supers from a lady whose husband had died. These were stored in a shed, when I went to get them there was a colony in some of the supers. I confined the bees to two of the supers, seemed like a lot of bees. I placed a sbb under the supers and put a venteted innner cover on top, since they were in a shed.
When I went to get them last night, about a month later, the lady said her farm hand had caught a swarm of bees.
There were no bees in the supers, one had drawn comb, the other nothing. The comb did have some moth infestation as well as some kind of brown weevel about 3/4 of an inch long.
My question is, if they swarmed shouldn't part of the bees stayed? Possibly did the weevils run them off? Did the farm hand get the bees and subistitute an empty super? hummm

[iddee]

Most likely they ran out of food and absconded. They will form a ball like a swarm when that happens.

[magnet-man]

You have been robbed! Not a thing you can do about it though. You said that one of the supers did not have anything. I am assuming you are saying frames. If this is correct, where did the frames go?????

[shylock3]

The bottom super had drawn comb, the top super had frames but no sign that they had ever been used. Somebody had definitely moved the supers but whether he got the bees I dont know.

[PA Pete]

Something it's taken me a long time to learn, and I still have trouble with - If you don't take it/them when you have the opportunity, you can't complain when it's/they're gone later on.

Stuff that's recently fallen into this category for me:

Free firewood (I'll get it on my way home)
Free aquarium (Do I really want it? umm...)
Free file cabinet (nobody will notice it there by the dumpster)
Etc...

smile.gif

[Hillside]

It sounds as though when you bought the equipment you didn't know about the bees they contained, so could you be robbed of something you didn't actually buy?

On the other hand, you had put a fair amount of effort into maintaining them, so maybe you were robbed.

[peggjam]

I think I would've moved them as soon as I found out they were there. After all you did buy the equipment and whatever was "in" the boxes...right?

[BjornBee]

Yes!

But the value of the lesson far outwieghs the lost dollar value, grasshopper. May your tomorrow be better than today.....

This lady could of easily just said "I have no idea what happened.. :rolleyes: So maybe there was a sliver of truth in her comments....Maybe the farm hand robbed you and told the lady a lie. You both are being ripped off. You just once, her maybe all the time.....

[shylock3]

I agree that I waited too long to go get the bees, things are hectic this time of year trying to get tobacco in the barn , and the hay, playing a little music, etc. If I didn't have to work for a living besides the farming, that would be nice. No one to blame but me, but.

[Kieck]

What happened with the sbb and vented inner cover? Were they still in place when you went back?

Kind of odd that a farm hand working on the place wouldn't have purchased the deeps and supers or worked out some sort of trade if he had been interested in keeping bees before "finding a swarm. . ." Do you think he kept the bees?

[shylock3]

Both sbb and cover were in place, he could have taken them off and put them back. I had the 2 supers and sbb stacked on 2 more supers. The 2 bottom supers were taken out and stacked in the corner. I know my stack was tampered with, just don't know if he got them. My fault either way.