A day late though, they had already moved into the old hive in the barn. Saturday. Sunday I cut them out. This gives me a chance to clean the old comb & wax moth cocoons & webs out. I'll close it back up as there is it always seems to have bees. A few screws and it will be easy to uncover next time. I sure wish I'd seen them before they moved in, but then again, I needed to clean the feral barn hive up.
I added a queen excluder on the entrance & screened the inner cover vent hole to keep the queen in. I had a newly hived swarm leave last year. I'll see if this helps. It's just a piece cut off of a full excluder & set into grooves cut into the three piece frame.
Guess you'll know in a few days just how it's all working.
ReplyDeleteI tried that queen excluder trick a few years ago. The swarm would come out of the box and then a few minutes later realize the queen wasn't with em and go back in. After about a week of doing that they actually left her there with a few attendants. I gave em two frames of eggs and they started a new hive.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why. I gave them a full deep of drawn comb & one of foundation should they feel inclined to draw comb. They may or may not. They might, black berries have already started blooming.
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