Swarm

[Mickyboy]

Hi
I havnt kept bees for 5 years , today a neighbour asked me to take a swarm in his garden . The problem is when I looked at my equipment the hive frames and foundation were dirty and no foundation in the frames . I am going to collect them tonite in a card bard box . Could I put them in a brood box with no frames until I buy some frames and foundation
Tia

 

[jarmo henttu]

Hi
I havnt kept bees for 5 years , today a neighbour asked me to take a swarm in his garden . The problem is when I looked at my equipment the hive frames and foundation were dirty and no foundation in the frames . I am going to collect them tonite in a card bard box . Could I put them in a brood box with no frames until I buy some frames and foundation
Tia

Better to put into brood box. At least it stinks beehive. Cardbox stinks something else.

 

[Sutty]

If you have any foundation you could use starter strips in your old frames.
If nothing then you could put the frames in anyway while you get some, they might draw on the remnants of wax, but may be all over the place of course!
No frames at all will definitely produce wild comb in "entertaining" shapes - might be straight enough to cut & place in frames, but maybe not!

 

[pargyle]

Put the dirty frames in the box .. they will tear them down if they dont like the comb in them and rebuild it. They will clean anything up they don't like - there's a lot of rubbish spoken about using old comb .. if the colonies that had them previously were not diseased and the comb/foundation is not riddled with wax moth they will be fine.

If you put them in an empty box within a few days they will have got very creative building free comb. You can always swap out the old frames one at a time if they don't fill them with brood ....

 

[JamezF]

Oh come now... Wild comb is such fun to sort out.

James

 

[pargyle]

Oh come now... Wild comb is such fun to sort out.

James

More so when it's covered in bees, jam packed with brood and honey and stuck to the crownboard so, when you lift it up, it breaks off and lands in a heap in the bottom of the box ... Deep joy, I have the t-shirt !

 

[JamezF]

More so when it's covered in bees, jam packed with brood and honey and stuck to the crownboard so, when you lift it up, it breaks off and lands in a heap in the bottom of the box ... Deep joy, I have the t-shirt !

It's like trying to do a very sticky jigsaw without a picture to help whilst people try to stick pins in your hands

James

 

[Garry R]

It's like trying to do a very sticky jigsaw without a picture to help whilst people try to stick pins in your hands

James

And both sides of each piece look the same - come to think of it that would be a great jigsaw to produce and 3-dimensional too!!