caught the same bees twice!

[peteinwilts]

Hi Guys

I have an 'interesting' situation.

A week or two ago I caught a good sized swarm in a bait box in a remote location on my father in laws farm...

However, due to the 3 mile 3 feet rule, I could not keep them at the farm, so Somerford Steve kindly offered to lend me a spot in his apiary in the village where we live which is approximately 4 1/2 miles from where I caught the swarm, and sited them on Sunday night in a nice new hive.

I was a little concerned with the amount of wild comb in the box, and much of it had taken a tumble, but when I sited the hive, I left the wild comb in a super underneath their new hive to allow them to bring the stores up.

Yesterday lunchtime I recieved a phone call from my wife saying we had caught a swarm in the garden bait box.

I drove past Somerfords Apiary last night and popped in to have a look as I had one of those 'gut feelings'. I was right. The new hive had been abandoned and there were only robber bees, wasps and hornets helping themselves to the remains.

The bees that I caught in my garden tree, which was half a mile from Somerfords Apiary, were the same bees a deployed in the apiary on Monday night.

I can't return them to the farm as they will go back to the original caught site. I can't take them back to Somerfords apiary as they will come back to my tree. Unless I take them to another site, I might have to bulk out the swarm box with frames and leave them to it.

so... if I go for the long haul, how long a time should I prepare to leave them there before I can return them to the farm?

frustrating, but I was pretty impressed that they like my swarm boxes!

Cheers
Pete

 

[Hivemaker.]

When a normal swarm with queen leaves its existing hive, they can be hived anywhere,even in the same apairy....they forget where they have come from or some such thing.

 

[peteinwilts]

so you think I should put them back at Somerfords as a shook swarm? (not exactly the weather for it!)

I left them in the swarm box at the farm for two weeks after I had caught them so were quite established

 

[BKF Admin]

I did this 3 weeks ago Hivemaker.

I left 2 queen cells in a nuc and they swarmed up into a tree above the apiary with the first virgin out.

I got them down and put them in a new nuc box 12 feet away from the original site.

Checked them yesterday and the queen is laying and they have near enough the same amount of bees as when they swarmed.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Just the right weather pete,less likely to bugger off if its tipping with rain.

 

[peteinwilts]

fair!!... a job to do this evening then!

 

[keithgrimes]

When a normal swarm with queen leaves its existing hive, they can be hived anywhere,even in the same apairy....they forget where they have come from or some such thing.

I hived a swarm right next to the hive it had swarmed from three weeks ago. All doing fine.