The cutout from heck

[Gene Weitzel]

A couple of weeks ago we did a cutout from some folks ceiling during a rain storm. Bad idea. It was a really big colony, over 70lbs of honey stores. We took lots of stings. It took 1-1/2 deeps to accommodate all their brood. I put a third empty deep on top so I could shake the bees in from the bee-vac cages. They were so pissed that I had to leave the empty deep on and just put the migratory cover on top of it. I had done this many times in the past with cutouts and they always went directly down to the comb and I removed the empty hive body a week later to avoid more disturbance. When I went back to remove it on this hive, to my surprise, they had abandoned almost all the brood, but instead of absconding, they started a new broodnest on the migratory top and it was almost the size of a basketball aready! They were still tending about three frames of brood in the second deep, but they had let the SHB completely demolish the entire first deep of brood. I removed the first deep (gave it and the SHB larvae to a fire ant mound) and left them alone. I am pretty disgusted with them, and have not decided if I want to cut them out again or just shake them into mini-nucs with new queens or something. Any suggestions?

[arthur]

sounds like they are not happy with your either.

[Gene Weitzel]

sounds like they are not happy with your either.

Oh, I don't know, at this point I don't think they care either way. They did not show any aggression when I inspected them on a nice day so the weather was the biggest factor in their attitude (combined with the fact that we were ripping their old home apart). They now are just busy building a new broodnest on the bottom of the migratory top. Not at all what I had in mind, but hey they're bugs, the do what they want. LOL

[Ross]

Cut and tie. Sounds like they have a productive queen and a good workforce.

[Troy]

In this situation I would cut them out again right away. Usually when they start building a new hive that quick half or more of it either is not fully drawn, or they have only eggs in it thus far....

I'd cut away all the nice new white wax and use it in my candle making. If they have any open brood in the center combs, then by all means cut it out and tie it in to an empty frame. If they don't have any open brood give them one from another hive, and fill in the rest of the frames with drawn frames or foundation.

I agree it sounds like they have a productive queen and are motivated to build quickly. I'd use that tendency to get new frames drawn.