[East Texas Pine Rooter]

I got them last friday, and moved them to the farm. I set them up in the exact place there the new hive will be. there is no electricity out there. i have always used a bee vac in the past to hive feral bees. After reading M.Bush not using a bee vac at all, is the reason they are at the apaiary. After looking at all that mass of bees, i think i'm a little to old to think using a little smoke, is all that is needed to start taking apart there home. I thought about taking a chair with me to sit in. if i'm lucky enough to find the queen, i bought one of those queen catcher clips. I can put her in the middle of the rubber baned brood, then install a queen excluder to keep her in. My only worry is using the top entrace, above the empty box for the rapid feeder, and persuading the workers to fly up, and into the hive to join there queen. Please give me some more tips, and encouragement.

 

[BULLSEYE BILL]

Something I have done three times now, twice with gums and once with bird houses, (got one more to do yet), is to set a used brood box on a couple of cinder blocks and put the destroyed pile of comb under it.

Disasemble the box speaker, disarange the combs in a loose pile under the brood box, a couple of inches above will do, set back with a cigar and watch the bees move up into the brood box.

They will leave the old comb, brood and all, and take up residence in the new home in about two hours. I don't think this will work with new bare foundation. If you want, it would be a good idea to cut some of the old brood into frames in the new box for quicker acceptance and build up.

I took pictures when I did this last, I think it was June or July. I hope to post them on my web site when I get it up and going. I was amazed that they would abandon their brood. It was just an after thought to place an old deep I was culling out next to the split log. I was just going to "set them free" as I had no mediums or time to mess with them when I was getting so many swarms to hive. The gums were awful vicious to just walk up on, so I didn't care to salvage the genes. Now they are five and six boxes high, and still nasty tempered.

 

[East Texas Pine Rooter]

(twice with gums) what is a gum? Glad you posted for me. I decided if i didn't get a post, i was going to load them up and take them to the barn to use bee vac. Since i don't have any drawn comb, i will rubber band the brood. Thanks for the help.