Hive a mess with wild comb and frame sizes

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SkiBee

New Bee
Joined
Jul 24, 2010
Messages
57
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0
Location
South Devon
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
3
I have a hive which has a confusion of frame sizes and boxes including some with wild comb attached to brood frame running the entire depth of the colony. (two supers and a brood box, national frames.)

I have twice tried to allow HM to go into a fresh brood box placed on top of colony but twice this has not worked. They are a really feisty bunch too and hate being disturbed.

So today have moved colony about 5m, placing new brood box in old site to allow flying bees to return to original site in the hope this might divide and rule before going in to sort whole mess out. But was beaten back by very cross bees. They are really quite unpleasant bees and at some stage I want to requeen.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to tackle this? Am thinking of assembling a new hive with the same sized boxes so I can just literally split colony into two boxes then go through each one until I find queen. Then as advised in another thread saw off the wild comb. At the moment there is so much honey stored on top of brood from what I can see, I think it very unlikely queen wil come up.

Cheers

Skibee
(Totnes)
 
You could first do a baileys comb change to sort out the messy combs and then go for it and find the queen and probably laying in the top box, or as a last hope shake the bees out at the bottom of the apiary and re queen. There are various methods of finding a queen.

7 ways to find the queen
(And 1 way to get a result without finding the queen)

1. Go to the Centre of the Hive.
a. Use minimal smoke, 1 – 2 puffs, take off the honey super and queen excluder;
b. Space the frames apart in the middle of the brood box;
c. Scrape off burr comb on side of top-bar;
d. Carefully lift one frame out of the middle taking care not to squash the bees;
e. Briefly scan over each side of this frame (like reading, taking about a minute).
Place this frame in a spare box and continue with the next frame.
The queen can be seen on the wall of the hive body or on the bottom board. The centre
of the brood nest on a frame with eggs is the most likely place to find her. Speed is an
advantage because the queen can hide well. Have an empty queen cage handy if you find
her on the first frame you might recycle her into a drone layer or an egg-less hive later if
she has a good brood pattern or has other good qualities. Once you have found her, shake
bees off combs, check for disease, manipulate combs, scratch honey in corners to make
egg laying space, lift honey out to top and replace with empty brood combs, introduce
cage and mark the front of the with a code – date – breeder.

2. Go to the Outside of the Hive.
a. Place an empty box next to the hive;
b. Use minimal smoke, 1 – 2 puffs, take off the honey super and queen excluder;
c. With the sun over your shoulder, remove the outside frame furthest from you,
check for the queen, and place in the empty box;
d. Remove the frame closest to you, again checking for the queen before placing
in the spare box. While it is not usual to find the queen on the outside frames,
it can happen. By removing these frames first from the hive it will create a
light barrier between the next frame and the hive wall. This will confine the
queen to the remaining frames;
e. Before checking both sides of the frame closest to you, glance down the face
of the frame. Often, the queen stands out taller than the other bees and can be
more easily spotted up to 20% of the time on the face of the frame before it is
removed. Repeat for remaining frames until the queen is found.
3. Dived and Conquer
a. Put an empty box next to the hive;
b. Take out half the frames and place them in the empty box. Place in each of
the two boxes empty combs to make up the space where frames are missing;
c. Next you will have 4 frames of bees and brood, and 4 frames of
pollen/honey/empty combs in each box.
The next day one of the hives will have fanning bees at the entrance. She will now be
easier to find because you know which box she is in and only have half the number of
bees to search. If you have two brood boxes one on top of the other, by splitting them you get a similar
result – half the bees will be in one box and half the bees plus the queen will be in the
other box. The advantage of this method is that is that it only takes seconds to do.
4. The Last Resort
This one is as a last resort and perfect for a recycled queen. It is also suitable to use on
drone layer or stinging hive.
a. Move the whole hive 10-20 metres or more, behind landmarks preferably.
This will cause them to drift back to their original position;
b. Shake all of the bees off the comb onto the ground and place all frames into a
new hive body which is elevated on a table. This ensures that the queen
cannot re-enter the hive;
c. Return the brood box onto the original spot to collect all returning field bees;
d. The queen will not be able to fly back;
e. Check 7 days later for queen cells, knock them off and introduce caged queen.
5. Drift Method
Suitable for pallets or apiaries with pairs or rows of hives.
a. Move hive to a new position behind a landmark and turn entrance 180
degrees;
b. This will cause all the field bees to return to the hive next door. Usually this
is OK under good conditions;
c. The next day, or even a few hours later, you only have nurse bees and the
queen bee left in the hive on the brood frames;
d. This will give us the edge in finding the old queen.
6. Divide and Divide Again
a. Place an empty hive box next to the hive;
b. Use method 1. first;
c. Place 4 frames in each box with bees adhering. Pair up frames. This should
make the bees and the queen go between either two frames where it is darker;
d. After 10 minutes, look for the queen and remember to look on the walls and
floor as well.
7. Strainer Method
This one will demoralise the hive for a while, so should only be used if all else fails.
a. Move hive onto next hive and place an empty hive body on the original
location;
b. On top of that we place an empty super with the queen excluder screwed onto
the bottom. This is called the strainer box;
c. Shake all of the bees into the strainer box and then return the brood frames to
their original position under the strainer box;
d. With a little smoke, force all of the bees in the strainer down into the box
containing the brood;
e. You will now have only the queen bee and drones left in the strainer box; f. Use only cool smoke so the bees do not panic and run up the walls of the
strainer box.
A slight variation of this is as follows: move the hive and replace a new bottom board.
Place a queen excluder on the bottom board and put an empty box on top of the excluder.
Shake all of the bees onto the ground in front of the original position and put the brood
frames into the new hive box. Many apiarists put a sheet of cloth on the ground in front
of the hive so the bees can more easily get to the hive entrance and do not get tangled in
grass. The bees will climb back into the hive and pass through the excluder to look after
the brood. When the hive has settled down lift the brood box off the excluder and the
queen will be trapped between the excluder and the bottom board.
8. Supersedure Method (Autumn only)
This method involves splitting the hive to introduce queen cells, possibly leaving the old
behind.
a. Shake all bees off brood combs into old brood box and put the brood frames
into a new super;
b. This is not to be done under a heavy honey flow as you risk drowning the bees
in their nectar;
c. Fill brood box with empty brood combs, replace queen excluder and place box
of brood on top. Nurse bees will move up through queen excluder to feed the
young. This can be done up to 7 days before the new queen arrives in the
mail;
d. The old queen will occupy empty combs and start laying there. After 6 hours
or next day the hive can be split with a division board or taken away to a new
site. Either way you introduce the new queen into this new brood box;
e. Since the old queen has lost brood and bees she should be easier to find in the
next few days.
By introducing a queen cell placed in a cell protector or hair roller, it should survive and
hatch the next day. When the virgin queen hatches it does not have any queen
pheromones. The old queen is used to bees walking over her and grooming her and
therefore the chances of the old queen being killed by the virgin queen with a sting is
high. This method is widely used by commercial apiarists and should give 80% success.
 
In the circumstances I would do as you say, one hive of one size, one of the other and the rest in the wild comb. You might just be lucky and have eggs in all three box' s that way you might just get another queen or two and get her mated. Kill the bad queen and combine when you have the frames sorted, however. If you can get hold of a good mated queen or two that would be even better. The only other thing to do is to do as we said before, get help, get a bomb proof suit, and just go for it. Destroy anything that is of no use and only keep good frames..... The most important thing is to get help!
Best of luck
E
 
Amazingly detailed reply, thanks so much. So I will leave the moved hive in new position and carefully read this to decide what to do tomorrow. Thanks
 
One way we tried was a "Taranov" i.e. to put a bucket underneath a white sheet,a few metres away from the hive. Move the OLD hive to the sheet put an EMPTY hive in the old site. Empty OLD hive bees on to the sheet. Build the NEW hive as you will with frames and framed wild comb. Replace EMPTY with "NEW
Drag sheet to NEW so that the sheet leads UP to the entrance. Let remaining bees walk in.
 
Last edited:
So thanks to all the replies. This evening did divide and conquer (Redwood's number 3). Bees poured out straight away, very, very cross. We were mobbed, but managed to take out half the brood as suggested which is now in a seperate box. Retreated under a hail of stings to gloves and suit. Only two hit home on me and one on hubby. Now have very, very cross bees but in three seperate locations. Will try to find queen tomorrow but very close to giving up on this colony.
 
They are really quite unpleasant bees and at some stage I want to requeen.

Sooner than later, it would seem.

Bite the bullet. New bottombrood box with some drawn comb and one with open brood (and preferably laying space) from the current brood box; shake all bees from the current brood into the bottom box and cover with Q/E. Replace old brood, supers, etc and retire from scene until the next day, when the queen will be found in the bottom box and hopefully near the brooded frame.

Moving the upper box off position, then removing queen box with Q/E and floor some distance away. Return old brood onto new floor in old position and retire for a few hours. Old queen should be asy to find. Squish and introduce a new queen about nine days later, after removing all emergency queen cells.

There are more gentle ways of doing it, but it gets the job done.

RAB
 
Thanks so much RAB, yes will requeen now, and will find her tomorrow at any cost. Hubby and I are quite quaking in our boots at the thought of going back down there but there is no option. Anyone got any lovely queens on offer?
Skibee
 
Mission accomplished, looked for queen but frantic running bees made that impossible. So shook them all out a la RAB. Thanks for all encouragement, will update. Skibee.
 
So now have all bees in one brood box and destroyed queen cells. Few bits of capped brood left. Can I wait 5 days to requeen or do I need to do it sooner? Worried a delay might make colony less receptive. Jeepers they were cross!
 

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