Bees in composter

[tkwinston4]

Afternoon all.

Had to collect a colony that had made its home in a compost bin today. Owners wanted rid and they didnt want to wait any longer.

So after seeing someone elses thread on here i have picked up the wild comb, about six descent combs and lots of honey stores and put the whole lot in a brood box and i have also put some fondant on the top just in case they fancy that.

My couple of questions are shall i open them up straight away or leave them with the entrance blocked for a couple of hours?

And I plan on putting another super on top with drawn comb to try and entice them upwards but do I put this on straight away or shall I leave it until warmer?

Thanks in advance
T

p.s. they have moved well over ten miles so no fear of them going home.

pps. shall i treat with oxalic acid straight away or leave them to settle in?

 

[VEG]

Open entrance but leave them alone as its too cold to be messing them about.

 

[MuswellMetro]

unblock then leave them as they are to settle for a few weeks before bothering them again, perhaps add a 460mm square of 2" poly or kingspan above the crown board

i dont think adding a super and enlarging the space they need to heat in the next month is a good idea

do you know how much comb they lost , you could add a super frames of comb either side of the wild comb (you don't say if you have foundation frames either side of the wild comb) ii would also get the space from comb to the walls bulked out with padding or dummy boards etc, give them as little space as possible to heat

 

[Vergilius]

If I were you I would not mess around with olaxic for them now...
Just my opinion...


Ben P

 

[grahambee]

Did you take photos?

 

[tkwinston4]

Morning, thanks for the reply s. I didn't take any photos because it was so cold. It was only 2 degrees and windy so I did everything very quickly. Lid off compost bin, pick up comb and bees and put in brook box, packed sides out with frames and foundation and roof on brood box. I was planning on taking a couple of pics but I was more concerned with keeping them out the cold.

MuswellMetro - they only lost one comb and that must have come off when the householder first took the lid off because it had started to go mouldy.

After advice on here I will leave them alone to get on with things. Thanks as ever guys and fingers crossed they make it. x

 

[margob99]

What a nice find at this time of year!

Out of curiousity; how did you transfer and support each comb inside the brood box? Did you do the thing of elastic banding them into a frame? Or did you just "free stand" them in the box?

 

[tkwinston4]

What a nice find at this time of year!

Out of curiousity; how did you transfer and support each comb inside the brood box? Did you do the thing of elastic banding them into a frame? Or did you just "free stand" them in the box?

They were all stuck together so I just held them in place with frames of foundation. It only took four frames to make sure they didn't move.

I didn't want to start tearing them apart for fear of loosing the queen, who I am sure was in there somewhere (fingers crossed) and I didn't want them getting chilled plus i am sure it would have made a hell of a mess out of some lovely combs.