Good stock?

[Ben Brewcat]

I finally met the owner of a home in town with a hive in the backyard, only to find that he inherited it six years ago and has never touched it. I'm planning on doing a split in spring to have a second hive; could this potentially be good survivor stock to get a queen from? As in, ask him if I can take a frame w/ eggs and place it in a nuc with some bees from my existing hive and see what the resulting queen is like?

[tecumseh]

sound like a winning plan...

one of the best hives I acquired last year was in an old man's front yard that was leaning like the eiffel tower and was prevented from falling over by several bits of electric wire tied to trees. I had stopped to see if he wanted me to set the unit back up, which I did. since I have bee near by, I asked him if I could check the hive for mites(which I did) and he asked me if I could move the hive since a niece was a bit intimidated by the hive when she mowed the yard. the mite check yield a '0' count at the height of the brood rearing season and the hive was gentle as lamb. quite a nice find.

[Robert Hawkins]

Good thinking Ben. You beat me to one.

Hawk

[Ben Brewcat]

Well, you're certainly welcome to share if I do it! I'll be asking my usual skillion-and-one questions as I work up to it, permission assumed, so keep an eye out come spring.

[Robert Hawkins]

TY

Hawk

[daniel G.]

I too had the same thing happen to me. A friend of mine is allergic to bees and asked me if I could check his three hives that haven't been checked for three years. The top lids were hard to pry off because of the wax and propalis. I could not seperate the brood boxes due to being glued by the bees. The bees were as gentle as could bee. I do not know if they had mites though. But to survive for three years makes me wonder if they did not have them. Dan