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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Michael Baucom <mbaucom AT outlook.com>
  • To: Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] What To Do With A "Swarm" of Straggler Bees?
  • Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 13:05:13 +0000

Hi All,


On Monday evening I moved a hive from a house I'm selling to the house I've moved into but I left the homemade stand at the old house knowing I'd come back the next day to pick it up.  As I was leaving I noticed a good number of "straggler" bees (that hadn't made it back into the hive before I loaded it up) still hovering around the stand where the hive used to be, but I wasn't concerned about that and figured it would be a pretty small number left behind since it was nearly dark when I was moving the hive.


Tuesday night when I arrived to retrieve the stand I was surprised to find a small "swarm" of bees hanging from the stand (see attached photo).  I assumed it was all the stragglers that had been left behind (although far more than I expected), or possibly bees that had flown back to the old hive location since I only moved about 1/2 mile away, so I quickly came back with an empty deep hive body and shook them into it.  I then brought the new "colony" to my new house where my other three hives are (including the one I moved the night before).


Now I'm wondering what I should do with this "swarm".


Assuming they're actually leftover bees from the hive I moved on Monday night, should I just recombine them with that hive?


Should I leave them in the current hive body instead and let them form a new colony altogether?  If so, could they possibly raise a queen and successfully prepare for winter this late in the season?


Should I buy a new queen, if available, to help establish a new colony more productively?


Should I possibly combine them with another weak colony I have via the "newspaper divider" method (that Todd described in beekeeping class) to create one larger, stronger colony?


Any suggestions and/or feedback would be much appreciated.


Thanks as always.


-Michael Baucom


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