This colony had been here for 5 years and was a well established, strong colony. Total time elapsed was about 2.5 hours. We pulled about 50 pounds of comb from the hive.
Thanks to your videos and others like yours we successfully did our first cutout (back in October)with no help after only starting beekeeping 5 weeks before. Luck might have had a part in it too. We aren't equipped to do anything that is hard to get at but we put our number "out there". We were called about bees in a log last week. Got it that same night. 4 men lifted the log into the back of our truck and we cut it out at home the next day. That night they moved back into the log so we knocked them back into the box. The next day they absconded right in front of my husband. (I did take video ) They bundled up on a tree on our property but my husband once again got them back in the box. We trapped them inside for 24 hours and opened them up the following day, but the day after that they absconded again. There wasn't very many, maybe 500? We likely killed the queen :/ I wish we would have just set them aside on our property and let them be. I feel bad for upsetting them and probably killing their queen. And they were nice bees. They didn't even bump us , even while using a saw to open the log! I hope they just joined up with our other 2 hives. We are looking forward to get called on swarms this spring. People in our area think there are going to be a lot of swarms this year because we had a mild winter.. Even milder than a normal Arizona winter!
@@carlywang3136 Thinking of each bee as a separate entity doesn't quite work for social insects. It's more like the entire colony is a single living being, and each bee is a body part that is capable of growing or dying off on its own. Nothing in a colony is irreplaceable as long as enough raw material exists. Even losing a queen isn't the end of the world. As long as there are eggs or larvae
Thank you for posting this! I thought you did a fantastic DIY job. We are getting ready to get a colony out of a barn tomorrow, not near as big. After watching this and other videos, I think we will use sugar water in addition to smoke!
Just as a FYI on your next cutout try stacking a couple of hive bodies without frames under the box of brood and frame with the queen. Then you don't have to dump them you can just open the top and stack the full box on top. Either that or vacuum some smoke to them first. That way you don't get swarmed
Questions. Are those bees still in the box you dumped them in? Did they abscond? Did they die over the winter? I am curious as I have experienced all three of these scenarios and I am wondering how your bees made out. Thanks
BTS Trash tell me when was it said in my comment I was angry or mad I only said (I seen it too and that he made the queen proud stinging those bastards) so tell me what made you think I was angry and needed to calm down?
sweetie, did you not see all those bees coming out of there to handle business??? I'M not sure what to think about people's views of nature and much more resilient it is versus how you believe it to be. no matter what you saw on A Bug"s Life, insects are NOT HUMAN.
You should have framed the brood, saved them a little honey. After you need to scrape as much wax as possible out THEN spray Bee-Quick in the cavity to drive all the bees out. I agree with many comments here. This was honestly a lazy cutout and you could have easily done better.
+OleaiD unfortunately this vacuum did hurt the bees a little bit. We later learned that it is necessary to have a smooth hose instead of one with indented edges like we had. But the bees did make it and worked out to be a great colony.
Isnt this vacuum a little strong/harsh for the bees? i figured they were a lot more sensitive than that. I thought maybe the bee's wings were fragile and their bodies were sensitive.
+hadezmage We wanted to find her so we could guarantee that there was a queen with the hive when we captured them. Otherwise we would have to buy a new queen. Also so we could be less careful after catching her.
ďeeeeesiiiikklddEddie, and. zZzzźZzźzzźzzzzzzzzźzzzzzzsasaázzzsszzsssszzzzsssßszzzźzzzsssxxxxzxzė Longacre I was just the same thing in the morning. the first one. the first one. the first one. qq. each day you to know about it
There can't be more than 1 queen bee. When a hive needs a queen, they will choose a group of larve and feed them a special kind of food. When the child queens hatch, the first one to hatch becomes the queen. If multiple hatch at the same time, the queens will fight to the death, and the last queen remaining will be the reigning queen. In short, there can only be 1 queen bee because the queen would kill any others.
