Eight people have looked at my thread and no one has an opinion?
Old Porch Cutout
My beek son and I went to do a cutout on the porch of an old abandoned house. The homeowners have been at the property since 2004 and the bees have been in that old porch when they got there.
What a cutout. It was great. My son and I began to work on this old porch. Comb had filled nearly 65% of the structure with great sheets of comb. This comb, unlike the tractor tire cutout, was filled with nectar and honey. Lots and lots of it. As we stood under the comb and was making cuts, the nectar would literally rain down on us. We were both soaked with nectar in no time. Honey and nectar covered our gloves, making it rather challenging to work.
We did 9 frames of brood and honeycomb (nectar). We would have done 10 frames but we ran out of rubber bands, go figure.
We're going back this afternoon to finish the job. I feel confident I can get almost another 10 frames of comb out of this hive.
Went out to the bee yard to set up this new hive and the bees from the tractor tire cutout came out and just hammered us. My son and I talked about it and we are just ready to kill off hive #5. We weren't even messing with #5. We don't want them to come over to these calm bees and start robbing/killing them.
Sorry, no pics. Took the camera and tried to turn it on but it wouldn't come on. Checked the battery and it was gone. Wife had taken it out to charge and so, what can I say? I'll try to get pics later today on the bees.
I will have enough bees and comb from today to start a whole new hive and replace aggressive hive #5 with these calmer bees. It has been a learning experience.
I have a few options with the second part of this cutout and wanted to know everyone's ideas.
1. Start a whole new hive with one of the queens I purchased from Flyman. Best idea because I need to find a home for one of the two queens.
2. Combine all of these bees from today with their sisters in the new hive from yesterday. Great for the bees but leaves one queen without a job.
3. Combine today's bees into another colony with the newspaper method. Again, what to do with the second queen.
Option one is the most attractive from the standpoint of I have two queens and now I have two new hives. There are probably about 3K-5K bees left in the hive I'm going to finish today.
What a cutout. It was great. My son and I began to work on this old porch. Comb had filled nearly 65% of the structure with great sheets of comb. This comb, unlike the tractor tire cutout, was filled with nectar and honey. Lots and lots of it. As we stood under the comb and was making cuts, the nectar would literally rain down on us. We were both soaked with nectar in no time. Honey and nectar covered our gloves, making it rather challenging to work.
We did 9 frames of brood and honeycomb (nectar). We would have done 10 frames but we ran out of rubber bands, go figure.
We're going back this afternoon to finish the job. I feel confident I can get almost another 10 frames of comb out of this hive.
Went out to the bee yard to set up this new hive and the bees from the tractor tire cutout came out and just hammered us. My son and I talked about it and we are just ready to kill off hive #5. We weren't even messing with #5. We don't want them to come over to these calm bees and start robbing/killing them.
Sorry, no pics. Took the camera and tried to turn it on but it wouldn't come on. Checked the battery and it was gone. Wife had taken it out to charge and so, what can I say? I'll try to get pics later today on the bees.
I will have enough bees and comb from today to start a whole new hive and replace aggressive hive #5 with these calmer bees. It has been a learning experience.
I have a few options with the second part of this cutout and wanted to know everyone's ideas.
1. Start a whole new hive with one of the queens I purchased from Flyman. Best idea because I need to find a home for one of the two queens.
2. Combine all of these bees from today with their sisters in the new hive from yesterday. Great for the bees but leaves one queen without a job.
3. Combine today's bees into another colony with the newspaper method. Again, what to do with the second queen.
Option one is the most attractive from the standpoint of I have two queens and now I have two new hives. There are probably about 3K-5K bees left in the hive I'm going to finish today.
1 - 7 of 7 Posts
Do you have SHB? If not go with 2 hives. Sounds like you've got it well under control.
D Coates, Thank you. It's a lot of work for a hobby but it is also a lot of fun. With every cutout, I learn something new. Never dull and boring.
if you have a spare queen, you might want to try re-queening hive #5...give it a month and see if they're less aggressive..
I had a hive that was pretty defensive, being I was new I called the Preident of our bee club to come and take a look. Well he thought they were too hot. The hive was four 10 frame med hive each box had brood so it was a pretty big hive. I split the hive four ways and requeened the origanal queen and they calmed down in little of no time. Just something to think about.
Thanks Johng.
I may give that a try. It's hard to not get discouraged when working with those aggressive bees.
I cut out combs and combs of nectar last night. It was watery, not capped. Does anyone see a problem with me feeding this back to the bees?
I may give that a try. It's hard to not get discouraged when working with those aggressive bees.
I cut out combs and combs of nectar last night. It was watery, not capped. Does anyone see a problem with me feeding this back to the bees?
1 - 7 of 7 Posts
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