Bait hive: scouts or robbing?

[JDS]

Hi all,

about 4 weeks ago I tried to split a colony that lives under my roof at home. They have been there for years and I'm quite happy to leave them but wanted some in a hive as well for honey production.
Got about 4 small frames of brood in all stages, a good number of nurse bees and some stores and locked them in a box.
The general consensus was to lock them in for 72 hours so they reorientate when they reemerge.
Unfortunately they managed to find a small gap and absconded after a day.

I left the hive outside for the last 4 weeks just to see if I can bait a swarm (I put some citronella and geranium oil on the entrance block). I had the occasional interest but then on Friday, suddenly a whole crowd of bees appeared after 5 days of nothing.
Every day now there are bees inside and about 40-50 clustering on the outside and fussing each other. The interesting bit? They started cleaning the hive, removing dirt, dead brood and bits of wax but in the evening everyone disappears again.
Yesterday I removed all but one frame of comb of now dead brood with only drops of honey and some pollen left. They are here again in force today.

Are they scouts? Are they robbing whatever stores are left? Not quite sure what's happening here.

JDS

 

[Anduril]

As there is honey in the frame they are robbing it. Also citronella is an insect repellant.

 

[Excession]

Hatched brood left behind.

 

[JDS]

Box is empty at night, so won't be hatched brood.

I thought citronella has the opposite effect on bees.They don't seem to mind it anyway...

Must be robbing then. I was suprised when I saw them cleaning out dead brood.

 

[Excession]

Where has the hatched brood gone then? As they have no knowledge of any previous location.

4 frames of brood...

 

[JDS]

All dead unfotunately. With the bees the temperature controlled environnment disappeared as well. Loads of capped brood cells after 4+ weeks. Shame really...

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

As there is honey in the frame they are robbing it. Also citronella is an insect repellant.

to both!

 

[sharonh]

All dead unfotunately. With the bees the temperature controlled environnment disappeared as well. Loads of capped brood cells after 4+ weeks. Shame really...

If you had four frames of brood & nurse bees, why did all die?
How much food did you give them?
Nurse bees would need enough food for themselves and brood.



Love Beekeeping <3

 

[oliver90owner]

Sharon,

Reading between the lines, the OP is not aware of the basic beekeeping distance rule and could not even entomb them properly (read the OP again, more carefully this time!). Virtually all went home, I would guess.

Rarely ever get the real truth with a 'general consensus'. Diluted truth on average and more diluted the more 'think they know, but don't really have clue' types add their views.

RAB

 

[JDS]

RAB,
the OP is very well aware of the distance rules.
Like most things in beekeeping there are lots of old wive's tales and half knowledge about, as you suggested.
My hives aren't the newest, poshest and most expensive pieces of equipment hence you do get the odd gap here and there through which they can get out. I missed one of them, my fault...
Locking them in for a few days and covering the entrance has worked very well for some of my beekeeping friends. You will have some losses back to the old colony but most of them will stay in the new hive.

Food they had plenty, as is evident from the robbing afterwards. Plenty of honey stores around the outside of the brood frames. (PS: they were comb I put into frames and wired in as they came from a natural hive.)

Re citronella.
It masks smells and in combination with the CO2 from lighting a candle, confuses and irritates biting insects such as mosquitos. (they home in on CO2. (your breath))
It does not have any biophysical effect on insects, unlike DEET for example, and is in fact extracted from a species of lemongrass. Hence I thought, it's worth a try and won't do any damage. It had no effect on repelling bees whatsoever, they were quite happy around it.

RAB: You don't know me and you make assumption about my knowledge from two lines of text. Yea I'm experimenting, but I don't like it if people just post to mouth off instead of being constructive.

 

[oliver90owner]

You are right I am only going on assumptions, drawn from your limited postings. Not much to go on really, but as they say, first impressions do count.

The only things I have to go on re your ability and knowledge is that you left a queenless colony close to the parent colony, did not prevent the bees escaping from the box, was surprised they had absconded (no they didn't, they just went home, one by one as they found a way out through the hole(s)). You left honey stores in an empty hive to be robbed out, you used citronella, insead of the well documented lemongrass oil to attract bees, left dead brood in there, expecting a swarm to arrive on top of it.

Yup that is about it. 'Nough for starters, I s'pose. My post was directed at Sharon, who had clearly missed your abscondment claim.

The use of consensus as a decision making tool is well known for being wrong for any particular scenario.

Next time if you must use boxes with holes, and especially with no queen present, I suggest you move them away by the usual 3 miles so they do not simply fly home, back to where the queen was.

As I posted to Sharon, I was 'reading between the lines'. I now have a little more to go on. Slowly building up the picture. Yet to be impressed but, hey, that matters not a lot to me.

 

[JDS]

Anyway, don't mind them taking what's left of the honey. What does puzzle me is why do they clean out a hive that is not theirs. Shouldn't removing dead brood be limited to their own hive?

PS: Couldn't find any lemongrass oil at the time, otherwise it would have been the obvious choice.