Assuming made a school boy mistake

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Nbw

New Bee
Joined
Oct 14, 2021
Messages
63
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Location
Essex
Hive Type
National
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1
Took the last of the supers off this lunch time and moved them inside. 3 supers with a good amount of honey. All cleared of bees.

Moved them inside the house maybe 20 meeters from the hive. Had a loose bee so I opened the window and and let him out. Not realising I left the window open. Now 3 hours later into back to find the room full of bees.

I am assuming this is normal and it was my mistake, the bees were hunting their honey back.

Cheers

Nick.
 
Took the last of the supers off this lunch time and moved them inside. 3 supers with a good amount of honey. All cleared of bees.

Moved them inside the house maybe 20 meeters from the hive. Had a loose bee so I opened the window and and let him out. Not realising I left the window open. Now 3 hours later into back to find the room full of bees.

I am assuming this is normal and it was my mistake, the bees were hunting their honey back.

Cheers

Nick.
Sadly I was helping an experienced beek a few years ago. I put a cleared super inside an old van, shut the doors and went for lunch. Came back to find the van almost hidden by a cloud of bees and door wide open. He'd seen a couple of bees inside and opened the door to let them out.
Somehow I restrained my tongue but i havent helped out there again.😡
 
Took the last of the supers off this lunch time and moved them inside. 3 supers with a good amount of honey. All cleared of bees.

Moved them inside the house maybe 20 meeters from the hive. Had a loose bee so I opened the window and and let him out. Not realising I left the window open. Now 3 hours later into back to find the room full of bees.

I am assuming this is normal and it was my mistake, the bees were hunting their honey back.

Cheers

Nick.
Yes ... Rookie mistake but we've all been there at some point if we are honest. Bees can smell honey from miles away - let alone metres ! It's unlikely to be just your bees - any bees within a mile or two will be on the trail of an easy forage - and they will tell all their mates ... it doesn't take long.

The best thing to do with an odd bee or two left in the supers is to catch them with a glass and a piece of cardboard and release them well away from where you are messing about with honey ... and don't leave the windows open (but you know that now !).

How did you get them out ? (He says, inwardly having a laugh at your predicament and remembering when I had a kitchen full of bees - near grounds for divorce in our family !)

I waited until it was nearly dusk, put all the lights out and opened the door and windows. Most went home and the few stragglers left I was able to catch and release.
 
Luckily I do not class my self as experienced

Thanks for the reply.
 
Yes ... Rookie mistake but we've all been there at some point if we are honest. Bees can smell honey from miles away - let alone metres ! It's unlikely to be just your bees - any bees within a mile or two will be on the trail of an easy forage - and they will tell all their mates ... it doesn't take long.

The best thing to do with an odd bee or two left in the supers is to catch them with a glass and a piece of cardboard and release them well away from where you are messing about with honey ... and don't leave the windows open (but you know that now !).

How did you get them out ? (He says, inwardly having a laugh at your predicament and remembering when I had a kitchen full of bees - near grounds for divorce in our family !)

I waited until it was nearly dusk, put all the lights out and opened the door and windows. Most went home and the few stragglers left I was able to catch and release.


Well, I opened the door with my wife behind me ready to spin some honey to quickly close it to say we have a problem. My wife then said are there bees in there, I said a few... hundred. And of course this was the room with my bee suit in

I shut the windows and was able to slip in and get my bee suit. I then spent several hours catching and releasing the bees through the other end of the room.

Lesson learnt. Glad I am not alone in this mistake .it won't happen again.
 
Well, I opened the door with my wife behind me ready to spin some honey to quickly close it to say we have a problem. My wife then said are there bees in there, I said a few... hundred. And of course this was the room with my bee suit in

I shut the windows and was able to slip in and get my bee suit. I then spent several hours catching and releasing the bees through the other end of the room.

Lesson learnt. Glad I am not alone in this mistake .it won't happen again.
No need to worry about a bee suit when bees are robbing! The last thing they are interested in is you!!!!
 
I extracted 10 supers yesterday, bees had been cleared with boards and the stragglers blown out, but there's always a few who hang on.
Bees are in the garden and I extract in the kitchen maybe 18m away.
As usual I opened the windows and let most of the last few bees out. I generally leave the windows open until I spot a bee flying in. Usually takes an hour or so. This time I never had to shut them - but I only started extraction at 4.30-5pm. Bees were still flying though.
The difference between me and the OP may be that there is still a nectar flow.
 
The difference between me and the OP may be that there is still a nectar flow
extracted a few weeks ago - definitely no flow as demonstrated by the bees going bonkers in the super store shed trying to get into the wet supers. had the window open for the whole time I was extracting and no bees came in, just a few wasps, but I think they sneaked in when I had the door open to load more supers in.
 
It also depends on the time and natural conditions. Sometimes they don't pay attention and you can do whatever you want. I watched a video how a commercial beekeeper worked with many hives. He took the supers with bees and put them aside. When he completed that work, the first supers were cleared, bees had gone to their hives, he could load the supers on a truck. I tried this method and piled a dozen of boxes but then find out that the ammount of bees in the suppers and around were growing very quickly. The situation was going out of control. I made a fire with wet vegetation and under the smoke coulds saved the supers. Wasted a lot af time. That commercial would have been laughing at me.
 
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The trouble comes when you remove the source if the robbing. Hundreds of bees flying round looking for it. My neighbour made that mistake. I knew something was wrong as the air was full of bees. He had left a wet frame out by mistake.
 
Removed a frame completely full of drone brood and left it by the bin by the driveway to dispose of once I had finished my hive inspections - must have been some stores in it as well - came back a few hours later to sort out and was met by a huge whirling cloud of bees around the frame & bins. Wondered why the Amazon delivery guy had looked a bit spooked earlier.....!
 
The trouble comes when you remove the source if the robbing. Hundreds of bees flying round looking for it. My neighbour made that mistake. I knew something was wrong as the air was full of bees. He had left a wet frame out by mistake.
The answer to that is when you remove the source of the robbing you leave a small amount of honey as a replacement. When the bees finish that they realise there is nothing else to rob and disipate.
 
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