# Trying to reclaim a nearly destroyed hive



## Chris H (Nov 28, 2016)

Our next door neighbors cleared a very dense half-acre parcel yesterday (11/27) and the demo guy uncovered a 50-gallon drum with an active hive inside. I was thrilled at the discovery and went over to see if my neighbor would give us the opportunity to capture the hive. No sooner than he happily agreed to let us take the bees, the demo guy ran over the drum with his bobcat - I'm talking flattened like a pancake. I walked over to investigate and there were still quite a few bees flying around and probably a couple hundred bees on the crushed barrel. I have no idea at this point whether the queen survived, how much of the brood was eliminated, etc.

11/27: My wife and I decided we'd still give the bees a chance so I set up a deep super with frames and added a few drops of lemon-grass oil just inside the opening. I placed the hive a few feet away from the crushed barrel, up on a few bricks, and placed a small bowl of sugar-water on top (filled with golf-ball sized rocks to help prevent drowning).

11/28: we walked out this afternoon to see if any bees had taken to the hive. We were pleasantly surprised to see bees (roughly 25) around the opening and a fairly steady stream of bees working in and out of the hive. The sugar water I set on top had a lot of bees on it and there were plenty of bees just buzzing around in the area. I expected to walk out there today and find a ghost town, so to speak.

As a side note, this colony is located roughly 275-325 feet from our two hives. I figure we need to be careful with our method of feeding this hive to prevent our other bees from finding the food source and robbing this one blind.

So that's where we stand. We're new to beekeeping (started our first two hives in May 2016) and we've never tried to capture a wild hive, much less one that was nearly decimated hours before.

If you're still with me, thank you for reading this far. Hopefully we can bounce a few questions off of the more experienced beekepers here. Also, please feel free to offer suggestions that we very well may never think of with our lack of experience.


Is there any chance a hive can survive a winter having lost virtually all honey reserves, brood, etc. in mid-November?
Can a colony survive a winter eating sugar water or some other food provided by us?
Can we feed this colony some honey & beeswax we have left over from our other hives?
If we can feed them honey, what's the best way? Open the lid and drop some honey laden wax inside for them to eat/use or set it outside?
Assuming the bees continue trying to make it in the new box, how long should we wait to move it? It's currently sitting in the middle of our neighbor's newly cleared back yard.

I know this is a little long, but thanks for taking time to read this far. I wish it wasn't nearly winter as I think we would have a much better chance of saving these bees if they had more of the season left in order to recover.


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

Greetings Chris, welcome to beesource.
Now for the negative part ... I dunno where in Texas Rowlett is, but if AHB are a possibility, I would pass on swarms, since you have neighbors _and_ kids.
Having been negative already, now something positive .... depending on the temperature, the bob cat operator probably tested those bees for "hotness", so...
To get the bees to move into your hive, you probably need to cut the drum open, & move whatever is left of the hive into the box,( maybe an empty hive body with a box of drawn comb on top, maybe a frame with brood from your other hives) place the box exactly in the same spot as where the barrel was. Feed these bees sugar syrup until the weather gets cold, then feed sugar cakes ( fondant, etc.)

you can transfer combs with honey or syrup into the new hive, if your other hives can spare it.
As soon as all the bees are staying in the box overnight, you can close them up & move them. place an obstruction in front of the entrance to make them re-orient.
I would suggest robbing screens for all your hives.
or, if you are pretty sure the queen is dead, how far is the barrel from your hives? this is essentially a shake out.

If you Are still thinking about doing this, read up on Africanized Honey bees,& read the negative part in line one again.
Good Luck, & take care of those kids! CE


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## Chris H (Nov 28, 2016)

tech.35058 said:


> Greetings Chris, welcome to beesource.
> Now for the negative part ... I dunno where in Texas Rowlett is, but if AHB are a possibility, I would pass on swarms, since you have neighbors _and_ kids.
> Having been negative already, now something positive .... depending on the temperature, the bob cat operator probably tested those bees for "hotness", so...
> To get the bees to move into your hive, you probably need to cut the drum open, & move whatever is left of the hive into the box,( maybe an empty hive body with a box of drawn comb on top, maybe a frame with brood from your other hives) place the box exactly in the same spot as where the barrel was. Feed these bees sugar syrup until the weather gets cold, then feed sugar cakes ( fondant, etc.)
> ...


Thanks for the reply. I will do some research on AHB. From a 'temper' standpoint, these bees seemed quite calm given the circumstances. My neighbor got stung twice but he was right there next to the barrel when the bobcat driver knocked it rolling. I stood around watching for a while after they got squished and none came near me. I donned my suit to set up the box as I wanted to set it as close as possible. I stood right next to the squished barrel just watching them for 10-15 minutes and I only had one bee that really seemed intent on getting me. The rest just went about their business. I obviously don't yet know if this plays into the AHB aspect at all, just putting it out there.

Also, Rowlett is in north Texas, less than 10 miles east of Dallas.


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## Chris H (Nov 28, 2016)

tech.35058 said:


> Greetings Chris, welcome to beesource.
> Now for the negative part ... I dunno where in Texas Rowlett is, but if AHB are a possibility, I would pass on swarms, since you have neighbors _and_ kids.


So I read the wiki page on AHB's and a few other random online articles. Considering the location of the hive to my property and the fact that I've done a lot of mowing, weed eating, tree trimming, etc. and my 3 older kids have spent hours playing outside, all as close as 50-75 feet from this hive and we didn't even know the hive existed, I would guess these are not Africanized bees. Everything I'm reading online tells me we would've been under seige by now. Am I under-thinking it?


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

I recommend that you gather up what bees you can. Try and get them in a box where you can spray them with syrup out of a spray bottle. The sugar water keeps them from flying much. Then look for your queen. If you can't find one maybe it'd be best to dump them bees into one of your existing colonies. Not sure but it's a plan Bee for you.


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## BeeGora (Oct 22, 2013)

Since they haven't bothered anyone around there, they're probably a swarm that split off one of your two original hives. If there's no queen the remaining ones may integrate back into your other hives.


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## Chris H (Nov 28, 2016)

aunt betty said:


> I recommend that you gather up what bees you can. Try and get them in a box where you can spray them with syrup out of a spray bottle. The sugar water keeps them from flying much. Then look for your queen. If you can't find one maybe it'd be best to dump them bees into one of your existing colonies. Not sure but it's a plan Bee for you.





BeeGora said:


> Since they haven't bothered anyone around there, they're probably a swarm that split off one of your two original hives. If there's no queen the remaining ones may integrate back into your other hives.


Interesting. I didn't know a colony would accept bees from another colony. Regarding these bees being a split from one of our hives, I guess it's entirely possible. However, the previous owner of the property told us there were three hives on the property. We found one in a hollowed out tree stump but it was gone within weeks of us buying the property. It wasn't very large and was in a seemingly terrible spot so we weren't surprised that it didn't last.

11/29 - I checked on the 'new' bees again this morning and there are a lot of bees all over the squished barrel. I assume our other two colonies found the barrel and are scavenging for honey but I don't know for sure. The hive box we placed still has bees going in and out and there are still lots of bees around the sugar water we placed on top of the hive.

Part of me wants to suit up and have a detailed look at the barrel to see if any brood or the queen are somehow alive inside. I'll probably lift the lid off of the new box just to see how many bees are inside and if there is an obvious queen.

We don't have any drawn comb to give them unless we take a frame from one of our other hives. We have one hive that's just a deep super and one hive that's a deep super with a medium on top.


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## spencer (Dec 7, 2004)

Seems like a good time to open the drum up with a sawsall to see what you have to work with and to also see if the queen is still alive.


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## Chris H (Nov 28, 2016)

Forgive the terrible zoomed in iPhone picture, but this gives you an idea of what we're dealing with.

The barrel is in the foreground - it was a nice round 50-gallon drum a few days ago. We didn't have a top or bottom for the hive box so I quickly put something together to get a box in front of these bees and I completely forgot to leave a landing strip on the bottom. They're managing to get in and out without it...


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## spencer (Dec 7, 2004)

I would have that hive entrance touching the barrel where you see the most bee activity. Also put a frame with eggs and brood inside the hive. That may get the ones flying to stay put.


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## Chris H (Nov 28, 2016)

spencer said:


> I would have that hive entrance touching the barrel where you see the most bee activity. Also put a frame with eggs and brood inside the hive. That may get the ones flying to stay put.


I'll move the hive box closer to the barrel this afternoon. There is one spot that has more activity than the rest.

Is there any concern taking a brood frame from one of the other hives right before winter? One of our hives is just the deep super and the other is a deep super with a medium on top. Both are full to the brim.


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## spencer (Dec 7, 2004)

As long as the hive you are taking from is strong, I wouldn't worry about it. 
I'm not sure how long you will have drones flying down there as winter is coming. So if the bees make a queen, I'm not sure if she would be able to mate so late in the season.
The only thing you may be doing is collecting bees to add to your current colony.


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## Chris H (Nov 28, 2016)

12/01 - well, that was a short-lived (pun intended) rescue effort. I went out yesterday and today and there were still a lot of bees all over the barrel, scavenging the honey oozing out from the hive being crushed. I'm fairly certain these are our bees enjoying the fruits of the other bees untimely demise. I waited for the sun to go down so all of the scavengers would go back to their respective hives and then opened the top of the hive box we set in place on 11/27 and it was empty except for roughly 75 dead bees. This is what I expected to find but it was still a tad disheartening since we witnessed the loss of a hive due to one person's ignorance (bobcat operator).

In the end, I learned quite a bit just reading through threads in this sub-forum and seeing how we need to be prepared for such an opportunity. In this case, I don't think there was ever a chance that we could've saved this hive though we may have picked up a few straggler bees if they joined up with either of our two hives as spencer mentioned.

Thanks for the replies above. Next time we'll be more prepared and hopefully it won't be such a traumatic event that presents a colony to us.

-Chris


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