[beekeeper1756]

Captured a hive today from a cutout but pretty sure, I didn't get the queen. I boxed up the colony with five-six frames of capped brood and open cells with various sizes of larva.

Question: Will the hive abscond without a queen or what? I'm going on the premise that I do not have the queen. I may order a queen come Monday morning. If there are no eggs between 3-4 days old, the hive will not be able to make their own queen.

Anyone have any experience with this before? What will my newest hive do?

 

[Kingfisher Apiaries]

I found the queen from my first cutout on the ground about 15 ft away. Check in 4+ days and see if there are any eggs. Then go from there.


My 2 cents

Kingfisher

 

[G3farms]

If there are eggs in the comb and no queen you should find an emergency queen cell in a few days.

Check back in on them in 4 to 5 days and see if you can find eggs, if there are eggs then you have the queen.

I doubt they will abscond since there is brood that need to be covered, even if they are queenless.

G3

 

[beekeeper1756]

I have a top on them now. No bottom board yet. I'm going to wait a day or two for them to move up from the bottom vacuum box to go up and cover the brood. Then I'll put a bottom board on for them. Have a screen bottom board ready to go.

I'm just concerned about what type of disposition they'll have when I open the hive again. Am I going to be hit in the face and not able to work the frames? We'll see in a day or two.

Sooner or later, I'm going to need to look over the comb. I put rubber bands around the frames and set the frames in the medium hive body. It's going to be ugly when they stitch everything back together again.

I have 5-6 frames of brood comb and then empty frames. Should I go ahead and switch out the empty frames for frames with foundation?

I wish I could put a feeder on top of them but that would require removing a hive top feeder from one of my just purchased nucs. I don't want to take away from my colony hives to work with a cutout hive as of yet.

This is going to be trial and error but hopefully with wisdom and experience from other beeks, I can cut down on the error part.

I posted photobucket pics. Do they show?

http://s938.photobucket.com/albums/ad221/beekeeper1756/?action=view&current=IMG_1417.jpg&newest=1
http://s938.photobucket.com/albums/ad221/beekeeper1756/?action=view&current=IMG_1415.jpg&newest=1

 

[bigbore]

were you able to place a sheet under the hive when you cut it out?:doh: learned the hard way. The laying queen would be unable to fly far, and might have been found on the sheet.

that said:
1)move all salvaged comb to one side.
2)fill remainder of box w/ foundation
3)fill 1 gal ziplock bag 1/2 way w/ syrup place on top of frames
4)slice 2 slits in the side of bag approx 1.5 in long running side by side from bottom toward top in center of side.
5)in 1 week, open hive and inspect comb for fresh eggs/emergency queen cells.
6)next spring when rotating boxes, remove salvaged comb, and replace w/ foundation.

all above is suggestions from someone in that boat before.

 

[beekeeper1756]

I have some old comb from the hive in both boxes now. The rest is fresh wax foundation. I do have a hive top feeder on one box and will put a hive top feeder on the other box, probably tomorrow evening.

I want to look everyday to see if they are making any progress at stitching together the old comb I cut up and put in frames with rubber bands but I'm not going to do that.

I want to look everyday to see if they are drawing new comb on the foundation, but I'm not going to do that either. I will probably look once a week when I check on my purchased nucs.

I will learn alot from this cutout experience and watching how feral hives do when I put them in a box.

Ring the bell, schools in session.:applause: