# Bees left and then came back



## herbhome (Oct 18, 2015)

Did they have little travel stickers on their luggage? 

No, you probably got it right with option A.


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## texanbelchers (Aug 4, 2014)

Is it the old queen? That would be interesting.


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## trishbookworm (Jun 25, 2016)

What a great catch!  It's worth seeing if you can find a reason for the bees that absconded. It can be too much shade, too much messing with, too many ants, mites, SHB, too drafty - not saying any of those things are the case! But if you put yourself in your bee's shoes, can you see something that was uncomfortable for them? 

Good luck to the swarm! We are a month away here, and winter comes and goes. Some days are 60, some are 30. Sometimes it's the next day that it's 30. Ohio is a rollercoaster some years. 

Carry on!


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

If you'd named them all you'd know if it's the same bees.  

Marked queen?

Pretty sure you got a swarm.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

If I only got 6-7 lbs of honey I would say I didn't get any honey. Something is wrong.


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

Maybe they were robbed, I keep a robber guard on my top entrance and a reduced ( 1 1/2 inch ) on the bottom. Also feeding honey can bring the robbers.


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## Knot Wiring (Jan 15, 2015)

texanbelchers said:


> Is it the old queen? That would be interesting.


TO BEE honest, I never saw this queen. In the beginning, I looked but never found her. They built up so fast and there were so many eggs/larvae, I knew she was doing good. Couple of moths into it they would get agitated quick, so I never went deep into the brood combs.



trishbookworm said:


> What a great catch!  It's worth seeing if you can find a reason for the bees that absconded. It can be too much shade, too much messing with, too many ants, mites, SHB, too drafty - not saying any of those things are the case! But if you put yourself in your bee's shoes, can you see something that was uncomfortable for them?
> 
> 
> Good luck to the swarm! We are a month away here, and winter comes and goes. Some days are 60, some are 30. Sometimes it's the next day that it's 30. Ohio is a rollercoaster some years.
> Carry on!


 I never knew bees had shoes? gotta start looking at them better.. The hive is quite tight I don't think draft is an issue. There are some ants but they are usually between the viewing window and the cover. I look closely at them when I visit, looking for mites, haven't seen any. I really think my issue was I didn't check this year early and make sure they had food.
Thanks, they got a relatively clean home with 16 or so combs built out for them.




Dan the bee guy said:


> If I only got 6-7 lbs of honey I would say I didn't get any honey. Something is wrong.


Dan, I didn't ever think they had honey like they should have. I heard the local keepers were saying they had a bad year also. Fall of '15 I figured it was a new colony thing.

Thanks for all the replies.
KW


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

Hopefully the bees in the swarm are better than the bees that left.


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

The fact they got agitated fast after a couple of months may be the key to what happened, mine get that way during the effort to replace the queen that may have run out of sperm, after the new queen is mated and laying, they calm down, but sometimes the queen doesn't make it back to the hive, and I have to re-queen or lose the colony.


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## Chris G (Feb 26, 2017)

sounds like your hive went queenless and the bees all died out and then a swarm moved in ....empty hives make excellent swarm traps


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

It would be a good idea to continue feeding your new swarm for a month or so, or, until there are bees on all the frames and you add another super.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Next time you got pissy bees dig a little and find out why. Ten to one the hive was queenless, tried making a new one, and failed.
If you had a second hive the cure would have been as simple as finding a frame with eggs and swapping it into the pissy one.

If I got a pissy hive that's a signal to harvest some queen cell frame(s) for a "justin case" nuc or two or queen castle.
By justin case I mean in case your queen never makes it back. You can triple your odds of success and if one fails combine with one that did not.


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