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What to do?

3K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  mrmarkhembree 
#1 ·
I lost a hive over the winter. This hive consisting of two deep boxes will soon be the home of a new package of bees. I fed heavily going into late summer and early fall. This has left me with one box of "honey" and one box that had contained the dead bees. The frames from the lower box have some old pollen and some thick shiny substance that I don`t know anything about. I shook out all the dead bees. They were mostly face down in the comb. I caught a swarm off my thriving hive earlier this week and placed this in this box with these frames only to find the swarm gone the next afternoon. I dont want my new package to leave . I`m planning on putting a couple of frames of brood from my thriving hive in with the hew package and putting frames from the dead hive into my thriving hive to be cleaned and used in it. I really wanted to start my package on drawn comb, but not if there is something that will make them leave. Will it be too much work for the package to clean up these old frames? So like I said, "what to do?"
 
#3 ·
If you didn't do it before, I would prob put in an entrance reducer. It will make them feel more secure maybe. If you really want to make sure they stay, you can put in a queen excluder below the brood, for the first week maybe. It will make sure the queen can't leave, but also means the drones can't leave.
 
#5 ·
Bees face down in the comb usually means they starved, maybe the cluster couldn't make it to the "honey." I just wanted to point out though that the next swarm you catch, give them a frame of open brood from another hive. They are very reluctant to leave brood so usually stick around. However, if they have already decided on a new location only a nuclear warhead will stop them from leaving. I've had a couple of swarms leave my box with open brood inside and fly right back to where I caught them and then fly on and inhabit someone's house.
 
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