Hey everyone,
I just got into beekeeping this season. After buying some equipment and failing to install a swarm the first time, I have acquired some bees. Like an eager novice I think I bit off more than I can chew:
I put up an ad on Craigslist looking for bees and a farmer contacted me, saying that a swarm moved into his shed. He had been storing his son's old beekeeping equipment, and the bees moved into some old unused supers. I asked him the usual questions to make sure they were honey bees, and then my dad and I took a trip to capture the swarm.
When we got there we found out that the supers had been stacked haphazardly, about 6 feet high. The bees had inhabited about the top 4 feet worth of supers. Also, the bees didn't just move in: they had been there for the last three years!
We split the stack in half, sealed up the bees and brought them home. Here's my dilemma:
How am I going to get the bees out of there?
The supers have been heavily propolized, and are very difficult to pull apart. Peering in, I saw that the old frames are there, but they had no foundation, so the bees have put COMB EVERYWHERE, and the whole thing is glued solid. From what I can see, sections of comb span multiple bodies.
Should I treat it like a feral hive and just go busting the thing up and try to install the comb in one of my hive bodies? Bee vac? What would you do?
:doh:
-Chris
