Swarm takes residence in abandoned hive.

[atayl0r]

Hi All,
Thanks in advance for all of your sage advice (Mmmmm, sage honey...).

Lost my hive again this year. Second year in a row (I just have one hobby hive). Must have lost the queen at some point - when I looked in a couple weeks ago (warm March day), I saw a hundred workers and no brood. Gave it up for lost and thought I'd take a year off - frustrating to lose a hive 2 years in a row.

But yesterday a swarm found the abandoned hive and, from what I can tell moved right in! There are three medium supers on the hive: bottom empty, middle half full of honey w/ a little pollen and the top chock full of honey.

What do I do:
- Feed them sugar water? We have fairly decent forage currently (I live near Sacramento, CA)
- Medicate them? They're in a hive that lost the previous colony - I've no idea what killed them off.
- Leave them be for a while?

Really appreciate your suggestions!

[robherc]

With a decent flow coming in, and 1.5 supers chock full o' honey, I'd say let 'em be, they should be fine. Just check on 'em in 3-4weeks to make sure they haven't already used up all their space...might re ready to harvest some of that honey by then.

As far as their health, swarms generally come from healthy colonies, I wouldn't treat them until I know something's wrong

[enchplant]

Well that is just great news!
I dont know if you need to feed them if they are bringing in lots of nectar. We are right in the middle of a main honey flow right now.
I think I would check them in a week and see what sort of brood pattern you have. You want to know you have a good mated queen that lays in a good pattern. Sometimes a swarm will be with a virgin queen in which case she will need to mate and then start laying.
I wouldn't medicate anything yet. Your old hive probably died over the winter from the effects of Varroa. Unless you got the stench of foulbrood- which I'm sure you would have noticed. I don't think you have anything to worry about. Good luck!

[Grant]

Leave them alone is my vote. I love when this happens. It kind of disputes all the sage wisdom of hanging swarm traps 8 feet off the ground, messing with ladders, installing pheromones, etc.,...which is what I tell people to do!

Grant
Jackson, MO

[atayl0r]

Thanks for all the advice. I'm excited I have a new colony! And a strong one at that.

A couple things I noticed today - there's a large mass of bees under the hive - the size of a large grapefruit. There's a bunch of bees in the hive as well - I have two screened feeder holes in the top cover and can see there's a lot of activity in the upper box - bees all over. Also, looking up from underneath through the screened bottom they are cleaning out a lot of dead larvae - so there are bees in there doing a makeover - getting the new home all prettified.

So, I'm concerned the queen might still be outside the hive in that cluster underneath. Should I be? I was thinking I might get some wire cutters and make an entrance near them in the screened bottom. Patch it up later. Good idea? Overthinking?

[robherc]

They're prob. just keeping cool...the queen's 99% likely already laying eggs (assuming she's not a virgin) in the "brood section" of the hive...the workers who're carrying out the dead larvae may well be trying to open up new cells for her to lay in as you never know, she MIGHT have already filled all the empty cells in the first few frames

[atayl0r]

Hi All, here are some photos of the swarm up underneath the hive and of the front of the hive. Plenty of activity this morning once the sun hit the hive. Still wondering if that cluster underneath is going to figure out where the hive entrance is...

https://picasaweb.google.com/1036693...83773529934994
https://picasaweb.google.com/1036693...83945736286242

[timgoodin]

I wonder if the swarm had two virgin queens or the bunch under is an afterswarm? Tim

[Fuzzy]

Ataylor,

For crying out loud.... pull off the box of capped honey and put 3 empties on that stack or they will swarm again in 3 weeks. In fact, in the middle box, remove half of the frames and put them in the new box 3 and replace the alternating spaces with foundation or drawn comb. But you want that thing to be at least 5 or 6 boxes high this time of year.

Fuzzy

[robherc]

now THAT was polite!

[atayl0r]

Thanks Fuzzy (actually thanks everyone for your advice), I was considering dipping into that capped honey. Trouble is, I'm heading out of country for 10 days starting tomorrow. AND I just caught a new swarm today - have to get them in a hive before I fly tomorrow. Why does all this happen at once?

I guess I'm going to have to cross my fingers they all sort it out by the time I get back!

[LetMBee]

I am with robherc

let 'em be, they should be fine.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[atayl0r]

Update: So, back from the trip and the big cluster under the hive was in fact an afterswarm (timgoodin gets a gold star!). I built up a new hive, grabbed the afterswarm and installed them this morning. The 10 days they had available under the original hive gave them enough time to build a 6" piece of comb and, on inspection, it had eggs in the comb. Yay, a laying queen!

Back to the original swarm that took up residence. It is big and energetic - they are flying like crazy today (first non-rainy day in a while) and check out the picture - they've definitely found some forage. I've never seen that much pollen being brought back. Tomorrow I'm cracking the top to check out the lay of the land. Might pull some honey frames while I'm there (thanks for that advice Fuzzy!).

BeePollen.jpg