Requeening a very grumpy WBC colony.

[Newbeeneil]

I inspected the WBC colony that is always grumpy today and have decided I need to have another go at requeening them,
Normally I’d just pick up the hive and move it 10 m away to drain off all the flyers before dispatching HM, easily done with a national but not so easy with a WBC and 2 chocka supers!.
Any bright ideas how I can move this in a rough meadow without stiring up the hornets nest masquerading as a bee hive?

 

[Sutty]

One box at a time onto a new floor, reassemble the hive "upside down" (boxes the right way up), QE in place on new stack, new box on old floor to take the flyers. Examine, despatch, requeen, reassemble.

 

[Newbeeneil]

One box at a time onto a new floor, reassemble the hive "upside down" (boxes the right way up), QE in place on new stack, new box on old floor to take the flyers. Examine, despatch, requeen, reassemble.

I was hoping not to have to dismantle. I was thinking of maybe putting a couple of lengths of 4x2 under the hive, raising it on bricks then sliding the hive along the timbers.

 

[Fellstoflats]

I was hoping not to have to dismantle. I was thinking of maybe putting a couple of lengths of 4x2 under the hive, raising it on bricks then sliding the hive along the timbers.

That, or an aluminium ladder on blocks? Easy sliding .

 

[The New beekeeper]

I inspected the WBC colony that is always grumpy today and have decided I need to have another go at requeening them,
Normally I’d just pick up the hive and move it 10 m away to drain off all the flyers before dispatching HM, easily done with a national but not so easy with a WBC and 2 chocka supers!.
Any bright ideas how I can move this in a rough meadow without stiring up the hornets nest masquerading as a bee hive?

Move the whole hive to one side, put a new floor in place of the hive with an empty super and its own super on it. remove the hive to where you want to go. after inspection, move the empty super and what is on it to one side. Put the hive in its original place and put back the supers

 

[Anduril]

Use the front tow hook of a car parked in the field as a pulley system to move the WBC on a ski like platform. Might have to do it in stages depending on the equipment you have.

 

[Sutty]

It strikes me that all the plans for dragging, sliding, etc are fraught with the possibility of toppling the hive and making a difficult situation horrendous!
I think I would grit my teeth and dismantle it.
Maybe tip each box up and slide 2 layers of mesh between before moving each.

 

[Newbeeneil]

In the end I dressed up in full kit including gauntlets ( unusual for me) and moved the hive 10m away leaving a brood box with drawn comb and one frame of eggs from one of my nice hives.
Went back in this week to knock down all the queen cells in the moved brood box and they were extremely pissed off.
I’ll go in next week to harvest the cells from the box in the original position, leaving one and giving one to the original box.

 

[Sutty]

In the end I dressed up in full kit including gauntlets ( unusual for me) and moved the hive 10m away leaving a brood box with drawn comb and one frame of eggs from one of my nice hives.
Went back in this week to knock down all the queen cells in the moved brood box and they were extremely pissed off.
I’ll go in next week to harvest the cells from the box in the original position, leaving one and giving one to the original box.

Maybe should have left 2 frames of eggs so you could move frames rather than cutting out I donor QC.

 

[Newbeeneil]

Maybe should have left 2 frames of eggs so you could move frames rather than cutting out I donor QC.

Plenty of cells on the donor frame so I’m sure I can cut at least one decent one out.

 

[Jules59]

When Ive moved my WBC hives, Ive removed the roof and lifts to reduce the weight and then strapped the boxes down to the base using a ratchet strap. Then put them on sack trolley that converts to a 3 wheel flat bed. I made a plywood floor that the hive base stands on . It had 2cm-ish sides to stop the hive sliding off. And strap the whole hive then to the trolley.