# Caution to those that do bee rescues= FREE ADVICE



## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

You did not lose those bees because they already had SHB. The beetles probably came from your other hives. The issue is that when you cut brood and pollen combs then band them into a frame, you will normally kill some of the brood. This added to a smaller protection force of bees than the original hive had and confused bees for a day or two gives the SHBs plenty of opportunity to over run a freshly cut out colony. In SHB areas you should only save enough brood to hold the bees in the new box and no pollen at all. Removals done after ambient temps are staying above 80 degrees are always prone to SHB overrun. 

That said, it is always a good idea to quarantine. Although I do not usually do it if the cutout bees are strong and the brood has no indications of disease.

abscond rates are high sometimes, and that is why I charge for "free bees". Removals can be difficult work with no assurance you will end up with the bees. The other thing to understand is the possibility of contamination of you equipment with applied pesticides an disease.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

And next you are going to tell us you did it for free. You didn't notice this when transporting/moving the comb?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

While I don't disagree that it might not be the best idea to put a cutout in your backyard... that would assume that there isn't a colony just like that up the block from you already. Frankly, there are probably more colonies than you'd ever imagine within flight distance of you. Are all of those being monitored for pests/disease?


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Beekeeping is risky and if we'd all stop taking risks we'd be out of bees in no time. 
If I listed all the risky things I've done this summer you'd probably get upset until I started a rewards list.
You have to take risks to win. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. 

Cutouts and swarms is 80 or 90% of my apiary. 
You should install beetle traps on questionable colonies until they're strong. 
Sorry about how you learned the hard way but if it makes you feel better I had some SHB troubles back in late-July.
Wish I could post the pics of my beetle traps full of the little devils to get you motivated.


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## frustrateddrone (Jan 31, 2015)

jbeshearse Stay on topic.


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

frustrateddrone said:


> jbeshearse Stay on topic.



????


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## ChuckReburn (Dec 17, 2013)

We do these "Owl Boxes" fairly routinely, have found the best method is to wrap them in a sheet and remove them at dusk, a healthy Owl box will be bearding with bees in the evening. I'd recommend against wrapping them in plastic as you did. There's usually a bit of litter in the bottom which harbors hive beetles.

While a quarantine area is a good idea, it's not unusual to find a weaker hive in a group of 6 or more with the lions share of hive beetles. A cut out is a stressed and often weakened hive, that broken and leaky comb is hive beetle bait - you've got to be on top of the issue or they will overtake a hive.

After a dozen or so removals you kind of get the hang of it but failures are more common than successes initially. Avoid honey and wet comb, take more bees and less comb.


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## bean tree homestead (Nov 18, 2013)

In my area SHB is a problem relegated to environment issue and hive strength and attributes of that specific colony.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Which reminds me to check the owl box.

And makes me think, if there's a feral colony in it, that may be the colony I give to my neighbor who tried beekeeping a couple of years back and the bees died. He still has the equipment. Would give me a chance to see what he knows and correct what mistakes I can on less precious bees, while also seeing if the bees show some toughness on their own.


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## BeeMoose (Oct 19, 2013)

I had a very similar thing happen to me with a cutout I did from an old farm house in May. I apparently did not get the queen so they went queenless for a couple of weeks. Then 
I get drone laying workers. Tried to requeen, but too late. Start seeing SHB larva on bottom board. By the time I looked in the hive it was over run with the critters.
As you can well guess, the hive absconded and I was left with a major infestation, which of course saw other healthy hives in my apiary to invade. I was able to stop this onslaught
before they ran off good hives.

So your words about quarantining other hives makes sense to me.


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## SouthTexasJohn (Mar 16, 2015)

One day it will click.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

Well, it sure clicked for me immediately after I read this post. Lesson learned for me: Always quarantine a captured swarm for a full 4 weeks until I can be certain they will not infect my colonies...

Thanks for posting OP!


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

Frustrateddrone - I feel for you, the SHB can sure sneak up on you. I do the cut outs at the location on everything. Place combs in a nuc and come back after dark. Learned that from JPthebeeman videos. Leave all the junk comb and debris at the location in a trash can there or place in a plastic tied shut bag at my house. Black plastic bag left in the summer sun will kill most anything. 

Owl and Duck nest boxes seem to have lots of debris in them like Chuck said. I would bet between the disturbance and loss of some bees those larvae in the bottom of the box went crazy. Maybe wrong, but seem feasible. 

I have even framed up capped honey and pollen in rubber bands from cut outs. Good comb with no brood or no honey is cut to fit frames size as well. I have a plastic tote with a wooden frame I place all the new framed stuff in and holds them in place like a hive till I get home. I place all that in the freezer for a few days and handle it gently when taking it out. Comb is valuable for me. Drone brood is tossed and new comb with honey is usually bucketed for feeding to the yard. 

But might be worth me reconsidering my technique, in some ways you might have been lucky to just brought those SHB pests back. Could be worse I guess with something like foul brood. Good advice, thanks and good luck


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