Thursday, May 19, 2011

cutout fiber box Santa Barbara

Yesterday evening a request for help in Santa Barbara was posted on the backwards beekeepers list.
I responded and although it's not my direct area (1hr drive for me to get there) I decided to offer my help. We made a deal and early in the morning I drove up there.
The information given in the PDF was excellent. Had no problem finding it.
The only thing that looked different when I got there was the box. It was at least 5 times larger than the box I did the cutout of last week.
I had taken 2 medium boxes with me and I suddenly was afraid it wouldn't be enough.
When I opened the box, there was only a small hive inside. It also seemed old comb had been removed. There was a lot of old (brittle) comb on the bottom. I took only the "fresh" comb with the brood and put them in my box. I scooped up as many of the bees as I could and dumped them in the box. when I saw most of the flying bees move towards my wooden box I knew the queen was in there. I then waited a while to gather most of the bees, used hardware cloth to make the entrances of the box in the ground "bee proof" and went home with the bees.
I put the hive on one of my 4 spots where I currently have bees, they started doing their reconnaissance flight. Let's hope they stay ;-)

[CLICK ON THE PICTURES FOR ENLARGED VERSION]

Lift the lid after I smoked them a bit.

Combination of very old (brittle), old and new comb. I wonder if this was sprayed.
I didn't see any discoloration of the comb. I had seen that at several other occasions where bees were sprayed. I didn't take any chance and threw away all old comb.
Only the one that had living brood in it, I used in my box.

After I was done, box was sort of empty

Most bees moving into the box, I got the queen!

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