- Joined
- Sep 4, 2011
- Messages
- 5,894
- Reaction score
- 5,519
- Location
- Wiveliscombe
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 24
Having had a day to contemplate it, I'm toying with the idea of moving my exceptionally unpleasantly defensive colony and breaking it down into nucs. Before they turned evil I was actually considering splitting the colony, so this might allow me to stay roughly on track.
It's in a double brood with three supers on, though they've only recently started on the third super and they're having to draw it out. Would it be sensible to start by putting an eke on top of the QX (removing the QX was the real trigger for them going wild yesterday), then an escape board, and restore the supers to clear them of bees, say, early-ish in the day. Preferably a warm sunny day so as many as possible of the flying bees are out foraging. Then after sunset remove the supers and drop a travel screen on top of the eke?
If so, what to do with the supers if they're not fully capped? Put them on another hive to finish off?
If I can find space I'll move the colony perhaps ten metres away and bleed the flying bees off into a brood chamber on the original site the next day, then day the colony away to split. But what to do with the remaining flying workers?
Or am I just going about this wrong? I've never had to deal with such an incredibly unpleasant colony before so perhaps I'm not thinking clearly.
James
It's in a double brood with three supers on, though they've only recently started on the third super and they're having to draw it out. Would it be sensible to start by putting an eke on top of the QX (removing the QX was the real trigger for them going wild yesterday), then an escape board, and restore the supers to clear them of bees, say, early-ish in the day. Preferably a warm sunny day so as many as possible of the flying bees are out foraging. Then after sunset remove the supers and drop a travel screen on top of the eke?
If so, what to do with the supers if they're not fully capped? Put them on another hive to finish off?
If I can find space I'll move the colony perhaps ten metres away and bleed the flying bees off into a brood chamber on the original site the next day, then day the colony away to split. But what to do with the remaining flying workers?
Or am I just going about this wrong? I've never had to deal with such an incredibly unpleasant colony before so perhaps I'm not thinking clearly.
James
