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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Curtis Gay <cpgay AT rocketmail.com>
  • To: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>, Ellis Driver <ellisdriver AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: NC Beekeepers Orange County <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Accidental swarm catch!
  • Date: Mon, 11 May 2015 22:19:04 +0000 (UTC)

For the last two years I have lost my bees .The first year they all died and the second year they just disappeared overnight. Both years I let the hive sit and both years a swarm found it. Just lucky, I guess.


 
Much food is in the fallow ground of the poor, and for the lack of Justice there is waste.

Proverbs 13: 23



On Monday, May 11, 2015 5:29 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:


Ellis,

You should go out RIGHT NOW and buy a lottery ticket!

In a world with nothing but puppies, sunshine and brotherly love, this would happen all the time. But for me, it is only one of those things that happen to other people, and very rarely at that. Bee swarms are attracted to the smell of old comb so that's why you got lucky. They'll clean up the hive and old comb by themselves. If they were mine, I would wait a few weeks to see how there are progressing before I tried to "help" them any. At that point I would replace the comb that the bees won't touch or that is somehow irreparable. My guess is that there won't be much of that.

Just my 2 cents.

Randall

On 5/11/2015 11:03 AM, Ellis Driver wrote:

Hello!

 A couple months ago I lost my bees when the snowstorm blew off the hive lid, and needless to say the hive was real gross and the honey was ruined. I had just left it at the edge of the field where it was, unsure of how to clean it out. Yesterday though a good-sized swarm of bees moved back into the hive and now I am wondering how to proceed. There are two deep supers of drawn comb, but each super has at least 4-5 frames of mostly fermented honey. Can I simply replace those frames? Or do I need to move all the bees to a fresh hive? Can I do that now? There are definitely quite a few other critters that moved in while the bees were gone, I don't know if that is a big concern or not.

I am not sure if this is a common situation or how long I should let them settle before moving them around. Any advice appreciated! I am really delighted by this and want to make sure they are in a good home.


Thanks,

Ellis


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