[topdog17]

got my first cut out yesterday in the siding of an old run down detatched garage. I think I have done everything wrong. I have got the wall cutout and the comb is removed and rubberbanded into frames put into a deep hive body. now the problem I am having is I can not get the bees into the hive. There are more bees in this hive than I have ever dealt with. There was 7 comb sections that went up the wall about 5 feet. There was also a couple of places where it was just a big mass of comb with larve after larve and capped brood and eggs. I cant imagine how one queen can do all that work it was amazing, to me anyway. I scooped about 50-60% of the bees into a 5 gallon bucket with a hole in the lid and it seem that the queen was in the bucket because the bees were moving in. in about an hour about 90+% of the bees were in the bucket. So at this point i decide to pour them into the deep hive body that is about 10-15 feet away from the wall they came out of. I shake the bees into the hive bodies and put inner cover on with telescope cover over that and the entrance is reduced to the small opening of about 1 inch. Within 10 minutes the bees were evacuating the hive and flying all over the place. I had been at this about 4 hrs today and the smoke smell and buzzing bees had wore me out, plus the fact I worked from 4:30am till 2 pm today didnt help matters. So I left and I am assuming I will find the bees back at the wall they came from just like today when I got there. Finding the queen in this amount of bees is like finding a needle in a haystack to me. Any sugestion on how I go about getting these bees into the hive body so I can get them back to my property.

All help is much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[AmericasBeekeeper]

If you left the brood near the opening they might return to it. I have had to shake them in twice sometimes.

 

[Adam]

I just did a cut out saturday and picked the bees up this evening. I did manage to find the queen and put here in the box. The bees all gathered at the top of the wall where all the comb was cut out, so I continually scooped them into a bucket and poured them into the hive. Before I left saturday, I smoked the wall heavily to run the bees out of the opening, and everything seemed fine with all the bees in the box this afternoon. I was always told the main thing was to completely expose and cut out all the comb, but I may have gotten lucky locating the queen and being sure she was in the box before I closed the lid.

 

[Ruben]

My guess is if they won't stay in the hive it is because the queen is not in there. If you remove all brood and eggs from the wall and then see where the bees go that may give you an indication where the queen is. That is if she is not dead.

 

[bigbore]

if you have a queen excluder, put it under your brood nest, use it as a queen includer, so she has to stay in. if you have her they will go in with her, if not they will be back in the wall looking for her. If you do this 2 or 3 times, load everyone up, and relocate them. place a nuc there to catch any strays that come by.

 

[ACBEES]

I never worry about catching the queen when doing a cut out. Often times it is impossible to find her. When she sees light, she'll run and hide.

I make sure I have plenty of brood comb tied into empty deep frames. You may have enough brood comb on a large colony to make two deeps. I scoop and pour as many bees into the deep hive body with the brood comb as possible. You will get plenty of nurse/house bees. They smell the brood comb and stay with it. Forager bees will not stay.

Tie as much honey comb into empty medium frames as possible put these frames in medium boxes and add on top of the deep(s) when you get to new location.

After I have all comb tied into enpty frames and put into respective boxes, I then button up the hive and move it. You can let the bees raise their own queen or wait at least 24-48 hrs and requeen with a purchased queen.