I found the queen. Nothing really looked wrong with her. Her wings were fine. But they whole group of them were starving. Must have taken too long to get to where they wanted to go. Either that or someone or something caused them to abscond from their hive. These lost bees are one of many that beekeeper's save on a daily basis.
Many people ask what items I use during a removal. Here is the light, it is rechargeable and has the red light option for safety and containment. Removals, especially cut-outs, more importantly of Africanized bees, should be done only by those with years of beekeeping experience.
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"Can I lure the bees out of my wall by placing an empty hive next to it?"
Odds are very slim, in fact you may possibly be better off playing the lottery! You have an established hive in your wall, building, garage, hollow tree, irrigation water line box, or other inconvenient for you location. A very good question is how to economically and ethically move the hive to a new home. Many people like to hope that by putting an empty "bait" or "lure" hive next to the entrance of the established hive will make the current bees want to pack up their belongings and move to this new, fancy, upgraded, luxury home you made just for them. Here is why I have never heard of this working: An established hive has a combination of brood in various stages, stores of pollen and honey. The queen's pheromone is throughout the hive. There is so much work for them to do. From raising the young that is in various ages, caring for the temperature, cleaning and making more comb, storing pollen, turning nectar into honey, guarding the hive, and much more. They depend on each other working together to make the hive function and thrive acting pretty much as a single organism. You can place an empty hive nearby and you will likely see bees going in and out of it. Are they moving in? Most likely, no. They are searching for resources as they will salvage wax or honey out of your hive to take back to their own. IF a colony does move in, it is likely a swarm from another location and you will then have two hives! They only way to remove the hive from the inconvenient location is to gently transfer the brood comb and queen and scrape out any signs of wax. Then seal it up to prevent any other bees from moving in. Once a hive has made a home others will choose to live in the same spot after they are gone if given the opportunity.
Sometimes I have inquiries by other beekeepers that are doing removals as to what products I use that may make the job easier or safer. I will update this as I run across photos showing these items in use.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Save the Brood! Some like to wire but I go much faster using rubber bands. I use size 117. Perfect size for deep frames and I double them when using mediums.
I wrote this last year and finally found my notebook, still applies! It is December 1st (2018) and still unseasonably warm. Temperatures reaching up to the low 80's by day and evenings getting a hair chilly in the mid 40's. So what are the bees doing? They are very active looking for nectar and pollen, however there are not many flowers available at this time of year. So the forage worker bees are expending energy and using their honey storage. If you are a hive managed by a beekeeper that may not be a problem for you. The beekeeper will make you up some sugar syrup and protein supplement patties to feed to you so keep you healthy and happy. Some beekeepers may even put out open feeders so you feel like you have foraged something and can return to the hive with a sense of accomplishment. But what if you have no beekeeper to care for you? What happens in feral hives? Multiple late season removals that were newer colonies or that got a late start getting established that I have recently done have had little to no honey stores. It is a trait of the Africanized Hybrids (AHB) that if you run out you to try to find some to steal or look for a new location that may have something to forage. Usually, during times of dearth, it is the former rather than the later. AHB are good honey producers but horrible managers. AHB tend to have more aggressive traits than the European Honeybees and this includes towards other bees. They will find a thriving hive, fight the guard bees, overcome and dethrone the European queen and take it over. It is like an end of the world scenario for them so they kill and steal a new home with food storage versus starvation. Can't say I blame them. Other reasons can also cause late season "swarming" such as heavy mite infestations. Mites have been known to cause a colony to leave their home. Ants or skunks or any other pesky critter continuously attacking a hive could cause them to get so annoyed that they leave. Unfavorable conditions such as partial exterminations, flooding, etc. that causes structural damages can also cause bees to abscond. During the late season fall or even dearth during summer this is what you are not seeing: an abundance of nectar flow causing an exploding population making the hive want to naturally split to reproduce another hive by the old queen leaving with a percentage of the bees (also known as swarming). I tend to call late season or bees that abscond during a dearth a "suicide swarm". Chances are extremely slim for these bees unless a beekeeper can get to them and is willing to put a large amount of resources into saving them. Non-beekeepers don't care what the real terms are. All they know is that unwanted visitors are hanging in a ball somewhere to close for comfort. This "swarm" arrived under this home's rafters on Christmas day in 2019!
Using old bee hive boxes and scrap wood we make swarm lure boxes to catch feral swarms in the area. Our hopes is that they will find our boxes more appealing than holes in banks of the washes so that we can easily remove them, relocate, and requeen with European genetics. To keep costs down I use old wax for scent and no frames. The swarm then free forms their comb which when I transfer into one of my boxes, I treat the same as doing a removal. The brood gets banded into frames. I missed checking this box and surprise! Three large sections of brood and some nice honey.
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