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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>
  • Cc: Maggie Funkhouser <maggiefunkhouser AT gmail.com>, Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>, Randall Austin <s.randall.austin AT gmail.com>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Swarm resettlement
  • Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2017 14:40:58 -0400

John,

Swarms are funny -- they are not like splits. Once a swarm leaves the mother hive, they develop amnesia with respect to the old homesite. So you shouldn't have an problem with drifting back to the mother hive, if the bees are well behaved. 

I don't know where that advice about confining the bees for several days comes from. It isn't based on bee biology. Bees don't forget where home is just because they've been confined for a few days. In fact they can be confined for very long periods up north over winter and still remember where water sources etc are once flying weather returns. So confining them after moving may "work" but so would putting a carburetor from a '57 Chevy on top of your outer cover. The fact is that you won't lose enough bees to matter regardless of what you do or don't do. So keep it simple.

Randall



On Mar 17, 2017 9:21 AM, "John Rintoul" <beecd AT icloud.com> wrote:
Randall,
The pic below is Maggie's bee yard setup. The swarm that she recovered yesterday came from the hive on the left. Her ultimate plan is to place the swarm in a new hive in between these two hives.
image1.JPG

My concern is that if she places the swarm hive between these two hives today (the swarm spent last night in the cardboard nuc in her house) the bees will simply return to the original hive when they return from their first foraging trip. There is no brood pheromone in the swarm to keep the attention of the nurse bees. 

Feeding them heavily either way, I see two options for keeping these bees. 1) Settle the swarm hive into an outyard for a week+ before returning them to the home apiary. Forcing them to reorient to the new location each time. 2) Confine the swarm bees in their new box for 3-4 days and then cover the entrance with leaves/brush when the hive is reopened - again in an attempt to get them to reorient. The swarm hive was filled with 5 frames of drawn comb, so the queen could begin laying immediately. In 4 days there could be new brood. 

Option 1 requires moving the bees twice. With Option 2 some bees may return to the original hive anyway, but if there is new brood in 4 days they would be more likely to stay. Is there a 3rd/4th option that hasn't been considered?

Thanks,
John 

John Rintoul
No trees or bees were killed in the distribution of this message, but countless electrons were seriously inconvenienced.

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