# Woo hoo! First time cut out from a damaged tree.



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

they will probably abandon it because it looks like you got it in there upsidedown/sideways. you have to physically put the bees in the box well at least most of them anyways, if the queen stays in the tree, they will all go back there. If you do end up with bees in your box with either a queen or eggs, and it becomes a viable colony, there is no need to remove rubber bands, the bees will do that for you when the comb is attached. Look up JP the Beeman on youtube before you do any more cutouts.


----------



## challenger (May 27, 2009)

Gotta put the comb in properly. That looks upside down?


----------



## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

>Gotta put the comb in properly. That looks upside down? 
You know a lot of people say that, and I don't pay attention. Bees don't care. The brood still hatches, the queen will still lay new eggs in it, and they will still put honey stores in it. 
It's so much easier to take one wild comb and fit it nicely in a frame without worrying about which way it up. Otherwise you may have to take that same comb cut it into 3 or 4 pieces (often cutting through more brood than you need to) just to fit it in on frame then fasten each piece separately. 
I focus on saving as much brood and keeping them in as big pieces as I can (bigger pieces equals less wonky comb), I have many frames from a cutout that have one piece that fits in the frame almost perfectly. when the bees are done with them I use them in traps (scouts don't care either).


----------



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

flower planter you are correct, the brood will still hatch, I'm told that if the comb is fresh enough and if they completely run out of room, they will re-work it, but in my limited experience ( I too inadvertently put comb in wrong when I did my first cutout) They completely abandoned it after the brood hatched out, and never touched it again, they moved up and never came back down so I tried reversing boxes and they still didn't use it, just started backfilling the brood nest. I have heard numerous similar stories as mine as well.


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Thank you all for the advice. I would have researched more but this was a last minute thing and the tree owner was just going to exterminate the bees that evening if no one could come. 

There are actually 3 frames of properly drawn comb from a hive last year. So if the abandon any of the wonkey comb hopefully they adhere to the proper drawn comb. I will go back out tonight and see what is going on.


----------



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

If they are still in the old tree without any comb, they are probably festooning trying to build new comb, gently scoop them up with your hand and shake them into the box. Place the hive as close to the old chamber as possible and if possible create some kind of bridge for them to march into the box if you get the queen in there.


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Ok I am heading back there this evening to see the activity. If they are still in the trunk I will try that. I don't think I can get the hive up to the top of the trunk by myself and have the supports built to hold the hive. So I may just have to pray for the best. The hive box is right in front of where a smaller portion of the comb was on the ground and where many bees were hanging out. While I was there watching they were marching from that location into the hive. I'll update here in the next 6-7 hours after I have visited the site.


----------



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

if they were marching into the hive, it sounds like you very well could be successful, good luck and keep us posted!


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Ok so I went and checked on the bees last night and the hive box looked abandoned. On one of the frames of comb I added there was a handful of bees in there. No queen to be seen. I looked in the tree and all the bees are there huddled with no comb. No queen to be found still. So she may have died with the tree fall. 

Then I got the bright idea so scoop all the bees out of the tree. Put them in a sealed hive and give them a frame of larva from another hive. So up in the tree I went with a bucket and a piece of cardboard to use as a scoop. That went badly! I actually got an estimated 2lb of bees in the bucket before I was being stung way too many times for comfort. My right arm got tore up. 

So I had removed two frames from the hive and dumped the bees a took into the box. Sealed it up. Took it home and this morning I removed the entrance blocker, added the small dice entrance reducer and moved one frame that was about 1/3 or more larva some eggs and sporadic capped brood polllen/nectar into the new hive.

I am thinking in about 10 days if they are going to rear their own queen I should see queen cells. Any ideas? Am I making all the noob mistakes?


----------



## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Arpolis said:


> Ok so I went and checked on the bees last night and the hive box looked abandoned. On one of the frames of comb I added there was a handful of bees in there. No queen to be seen. I looked in the tree and all the bees are there huddled with no comb. No queen to be found still. So she may have died with the tree fall.
> 
> Then I got the bright idea so scoop all the bees out of the tree. Put them in a sealed hive and give them a frame of larva from another hive. So up in the tree I went with a bucket and a piece of cardboard to use as a scoop. That went badly! I actually got an estimated 2lb of bees in the bucket before I was being stung way too many times for comfort. My right arm got tore up.
> 
> ...


You'll see the start of queen cells way sooner than that. They'll be capped in about 5 days.


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Ok then. So here in about a week on a non-rainy day I will check on them to see progress. The trick now is to pray for a clear day lol. We have had sooooo much rain recently.


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

The bees are actively foraging and going in and out of the hive with good frequency. It is so hard trying to leave them alone. I want to see their progress so bad. Just a few more days and then I will check them out for queen cells.


----------



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

after 48 hrs they will have started them, you can check then, if they didn't start then you got the queen, once they are capped, be carefull any jaring and you could dislodge the queen. Here is a calandar for what to expect based off the day you stuck larva in there. It could be delayed up to 3 days based off this date depending on if you had appropriate aged larva, or they waited for an egg to hatch.

http://www.thebeeyard.org/cgi-bin/queencalendar.pl?month=5&day=29&year=2015


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Ok yea so per you and that chart since I moved the larva over around 9am Friday then queen cells should have started mid day Sunday and I should check now. If no started queen cells then I need to look for younger larva or eggs in my doner hive and place those in my starting hive. Sound right?


----------



## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Arpolis said:


> Ok yea so per you and that chart since I moved the larva over around 9am Friday then queen cells should have started mid day Sunday and I should check now. If no started queen cells then I need to look for younger larva or eggs in my doner hive and place those in my starting hive. Sound right?


Look for evidence of a laying queen (eggs). You don't have any proof that you didn't get her, right?


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Ok so is this an uncapped queen cell or hatched queen cell? I am guessing uncapped. 









There was only the one queen cell in the hive. No new eggs/larva. All the larva I put into the hive was capped over. It looked like they are re-working old comb and attaching it. Also several locations looked to be being filled with nectar. 

I added a board man feeder to help the little girls build a bit faster. The hive is small with only enough bees in mid day to cover two frames. But they look busy.

Fingers crossed to get a strong queen that successfully mates.


----------



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

It looks about a day or so away from being capped so adjust that calendar I posted and check back about a day after the hatch date and be very careful removing the frame if it has a round hole at the bottom it hatched at that point don't open it again untill the calendar says you should have eggs once you see larva drop in a frame of capped brood and it will take off like a rocket


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Ok cool. So per the calendar I will wait 17 days which should put me right at the start of larva being there or a day or two into it. So Thursday 6/18 I will check it again. Until then I will keep my quart size feeding jar topped up with sugar water and leave them bee. 

When I check them again and drop the capped brood in, should I shake the nurse bees off that frame or just move the nurse bees with the frame?


----------



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

If it's nurse bees they will be fine a little smoke on it will get any forragers off and into the air


----------



## challenger (May 27, 2009)

Great Day! This is an awful lot of work for a few bees isn't it?
I too have been guilty of putting way too much effort into trying to obtain some "free bees". I've learned that there is no such thing unless a swarm comes to a trap in your own apiary.
Personally I would move on and let these "little girls" fend for themselves.
Sheesh.
Let me guess, you are thinking the queen this "feral colony" will raise will be varroa proof right?
As I said, move on and be glad you did.


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Lol I am not thinking they will be better or more resistant to anything. I just thought "hey I should try this at least once." It is all for fun and the experience. Once all done I now have a story to tell and will be wiser from the experience. I will treat this hive exactly like I would any other. If they live. Great! If not then I have learned a lesson. I personally don't think I loos any way.


----------



## challenger (May 27, 2009)

There you go. Reason enough for me. Sometimes we do things just because we want to. Those things are called fun.


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Ok I could not wait until the 18th and so I took a quick peek. The queen cell I spotted and took a pic of was capped over. But then I noticed another capped queen cell just 7 or 10 cells over to the right of that one. A quick look on the other side and I found 4 other capped queen cells and one open. So there was 7 all together. So I thought I may had messed up and added a frame of larva that was too old and they only had one good larva that was young enough. But now I see there was plenty. So we should have a good competition of the strongest queen. Hopefully one hatches quick enough and can kill the others before they hatch. I don't want a queen fight. As little complication as possible is what I want for my first queen rearing. Ok I think I can rest until the 18th.


----------



## Arpolis (Aug 26, 2013)

Ok quick update. The 17th and 18th we had flash flood warnings and I could not check the queen. Today however I got out to my mini bee yard and added a honey super to my big hive and transferred a frame of larva and capped brood to the small new hive. On quick inspection the first queen cell I noticed was obviously hatched and one next to it looks like it may have been hatched too. The other queen cells on the other side already look worked over. On the frame next to that one I believe I spotted the queen. Without a helping hand I could not take a pic so here is a quick google pic of what I think she most looked like:

I did not see any larva on 3 of the frames I checked. On the hatched queen frame there may have been some day old lava but to my untrained eye I could not tell for sure. It was just different looking then bee bread, pollen, honey/nectar. It was liquidy with a hint of creamy white in the back ground. Hmmmmm. I will check again in a week or so and see how they are progressing along.


----------

