how can i transfer the colony to a new hive?

[shrekfeet]

please help me, I'm in my third year, have spent a fortune on equipment and harvested very little honey. I'm fast losing faith.
Anyway, 3 weeks ago on the night before I was due to get up at 4am to go on holiday my bees swarmed. It was fast going dark, I had to do something so with no spare hive I fashioned one from a wooden box, added 3 drawn out frames and introduced the swarm. Brilliant, they stayed so when I got back from holiday I bought a new hive with the intention of lifting the queen, the brood frames and all into the new hive.

Guess what? And I know all you experienced keepers know the answer. The colony has completely ignored the frames and built some lovely fins of comb all on their clever own



so how do I deal with this. I can't really expect to be able to manage them if I leave them in the box but I don't know how to get them into the hive.
please help

 

[VEG]

Leave them in there for the winter and do a bailey change in the spring

 

[shrekfeet]

thanks Chris I will, what's a Bailey change?

 

[VEG]

who is chris?

A bailey change is when you place a brood box on top of the box you have the bees then draw out the foundation you then find queen and put her in the new box put queen excluder on and place original box on top until the brood hatch.

 

[shrekfeet]

meant Craig, not Chris. It's been a long day!
Thanks for the advice.

 

[Beanwood]

Leave them in there for the winter and do a bailey change in the spring

That's one view, alternatively do a bit more reading on here and wire or elastic band the combs into frames ? (I've never tried this myself BTW)

Try this one for a start: http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=11649&highlight=elastic+bands

 

[Outlander]

That's one view, alternatively do a bit more reading on here and wire or elastic band the combs into frames ? (I've never tried this myself BTW)

Try this one for a start: http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=11649&highlight=elastic+bands

Thats what I would do and will be doing for the first time later this week.

 

[Finman]

.
How big is your swarm? It has drawn 3 frames. It does not sound big.
But how it can draw his own combs? You have some empty space there.

Now you should have a hive what the swarm occupye totally.
Then, no mesh floor.

If the swarm occupye 3-4 frames, its ventilation should be 10 mm x 30 mm.

You may aid the colony when you take a frood frame from original hive.


I have got splended results in polystyre nucs. They are wam and tiny colonies make huge brood areas.

I have used wooden boxes 35 years as nuc boxes. They are like from another planets.

To get honey, the first thing is to get big hives.

When I started beekeeping I got nothing from black bee mongrels. First good yield came when I bought a Caucasian queen and it made 5 box hive. It made 50 kg honey. It was year 1965.


To get honey yields
- bye good queens
- learn to build up the colonies: warm hive. Not tight or loose room.
Handle swarm with false swarm system and join hiveparts to get honey.

A foraging hive must be over 4 boxes. Smaller hives are toys.

.

 

[itma]

please help me, I'm in my third year, have spent a fortune on equipment and harvested very little honey. I'm fast losing faith.
Anyway, 3 weeks ago on the night before I was due to get up at 4am to go on holiday my bees swarmed. It was fast going dark, I had to do something so with no spare hive I fashioned one from a wooden box, added 3 drawn out frames and introduced the swarm. Brilliant, they stayed so when I got back from holiday I bought a new hive with the intention of lifting the queen, the brood frames and all into the new hive.

Guess what? And I know all you experienced keepers know the answer. The colony has completely ignored the frames and built some lovely fins of comb all on their clever own



so how do I deal with this. I can't really expect to be able to manage them if I leave them in the box but I don't know how to get them into the hive.
please help

It doesn't sound as though the box they are in is
1/ big enough
2/ well-enough built
for over wintering.
Besides, the longer they stay there, the more of a mess they will make of it.
Doing a "Bailey-style" comb change presupposes sticking another brood box over the existing one. I wonder how possible that might be with your improvised box?
If you are going to have to cut it out - better now than in six months time.

The year isn't over yet (for most of us anyway). There's time to sort them out before winter.

However, the big question for me would be: How are the other half doing?
The bees that didn't swarm - have they got themselves a well-mated, laying queen? How many stayed behind? (If they have lost a cast or two as well as the prime swarm, there may not be a lot of bees there.)
If they aren't doing well, then the aim should be to recombine the two into one decent hive, before winter.

But having two colonies is a much more secure, sustainable way to do beekeeping than just having the one colony that your profile shows. So "making increase" and getting both halves through winter is a desirable objective!
If recombining asap is not needed, that's the way to head.
And yes, cutting the comb and using string or wire or rubber bands to fix the pieces into frames would be the way to go --- that is exactly the sort of 'special' job that your local association would likely be delighted to help with, both from available expertise and demonstrating to other members.

To add yet more to your shopping list - you do need some spare kit on standby to prevent swarming.
Doesn't need to be much or fantastic kit, but you do need enough to be able to do an artificial swarm - or maybe two!
A basic empty poly National (mesh floor & inspection board, brood, cover, roof & strap) is only about £60, and being lightweight is fairly easily stored. Or you may wish to take advantage of the sales during Autumn and Winter to get something more traditional at a better than usual price.


I'll leave it to others (who might have 'been there') to suggest how best you might try to recombine the colonies if you were to choose that route.


Regarding getting a honey crop, the first trick is to get a decent year for your local forage, and the second is to learn to stop them swarming - as Finman has indicated, a bigger colony brings in disproportionately more surplus for you to harvest, while a swarmed colony will have swarmed rather than produce a surplus. So a primary learning objective has to be swarm prevention!

 

[Polyanwood]

it is depressing not getting honey.

How to get a good honey crop?
big colonies
stop them swarming
don't go poking about in the brood boxes anymore than necessary
make sure they are somewhere with a good nectar flow and not too many other honey bees
and all bees are not equal. you want queens who are the daughters of very productive colonies.

I liked Veg's advice on Bailey best. It costs a lot of energy to make and repair comb. ( Some say it takes 6lb of honey to make 1lb of wax) At this time of year you want them making Winter bees and collecting stores.

 

[itma]

A bailey change is when you place a brood box on top of the box you have the bees then draw out the foundation you then find queen and put her in the new box put queen excluder on and place original box on top until the brood hatch.

Am I the only one to think that finding and catching the queen in amongst all the wild comb just might not be ... simple?
If one is going to cut through the wild comb to find her, then why not just mount those cut combs in frames as one goes along?

 

[VEG]

Easy to get the queen up into the top box with smoke. The OP didnt say they had problems finding queens.