# First cutout upcoming - a couple questions



## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

If you do not get the queen then the bees will not go the box at all. So as a contingency I would take them away and simply come back to the cut out after dark and vacuum the remaining bees that cluster at the hive location. Sometimes that take two days but it will get them all.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

bison said:


> If we just leave the hive inside the garage on the floor will the bees that return to the cavity from outside the wall make it into the new hive?


If there is a queen and you get her in the box uninjured, or if the queen has swarmed and you get queen cells and brood in the box, then yes. Try not to use smoke, and vacuum them as gently as practical.



> Should we try to elevate it closer to the cutout area?


I would.


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

Thanks - a couple more questions:

- is there a better time to do it, morning versus afternoon? My guess is that it's a couple hour project (?), don't know if there's any particular advantage to giving them more or less time to adjust to the change.

- Any tips of things to bring/do/think about that wouldn't necessarily be apparent?

- What about gloves? I suspect they'll get covered in honey as we cut out the comb. Do you rinse them periodically or just go with it?

Thanks!


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

bison said:


> is there a better time to do it, morning versus afternoon?


I would do it in the afternoon. As Tenbears said, plan to be there at dusk or later to collect the late arriving foragers. 



> - Any tips of things to bring/do/think about that wouldn't necessarily be apparent?


A white twin bed sheet, dust pan, flashlight, steel wool, rubber bands, five gallon bucket with lid, old ice chest, trash bag, a mirror.



> - What about gloves? I suspect they'll get covered in honey as we cut out the comb. Do you rinse them periodically or just go with it?


Rinse occasionally if it's handy to keep honey off your gear. I was just kidding about the mirror.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

May I add painters tape and some thin plastic painters sheeting? This way you can protect the garage wall from honey/stains as it looks as if the last removal person/company didn't. lol

Removals and repair usually take four hours as an average.
Like Rivederwent said, rinse your gloves/gear A LOT! It will reduce the amount of clean up time at the end.


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

Thanks for the tips! More questions...
- I can't figure out the use of steel wool and an ice chest (other than for beverages for the crew!)
- Am I right that it's best to only transfer the brood comb to the new hive box and discard (for eating!) most of the honey? I've heard that manipulating the honey comb leads to a big mess and dead bees.

Luckily we don't have to do any repairs so I'm hoping for a two hour job but will plan for longer.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

bison said:


> - I can't figure out the use of steel wool and an ice chest (other than for beverages for the crew!)


I use steel wool occasionally to temporarily close passageways in walls and often to close entrances in bee boxes. I toss any honey that I intend to crush and strain into an old ice chest and close the lid to keep bees out. Sometimes the ice chest useful for other purposes



> - Am I right that it's best to only transfer the brood comb to the new hive box and discard (for eating!) most of the honey?


Yes. Feed the bees if necessary.



> Luckily we don't have to do any repairs so I'm hoping for a two hour job but will plan for longer.


1½ hours plus any return trips.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

bison said:


> a new hive is immediately next to that patch (I can tell by the sound and temperature of the wall). I've watched plenty of videos and have helped with a couple cutouts so pretty much know the drill of opening it up, vacuuming up bees, putting comb into frames, and trying to get the queen. With that said, any tips based on how the location looks would be helpful.


Don't let the sound or temperature fool you to there location. How did you gauge the temperature & sound? Did the old cavity where the patch is get filled with something? I have never been a fan of vacuuming first, then removing comb, I typically do the opposite. A bucket of hot water is gold in removals. If you only put in brood comb, you will definitely need to feed them. I like to put in whole honey comb frames as the outer frames. It only becomes a mess if they are not handled correctly, are too fragile, are uncapped or in pieces, those go in a bucket, or if you put those frames on top of brood frames:no: I make a lot of those decisions based upon the size of the hive, stores, etc. once the whole hive is exposed. Also you will definitely need to reduce the entrance of the colony to a minimal once they are at their new location.


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> How did you gauge the temperature & sound? Did the old cavity where the patch is get filled with something?


Pretty easy - I felt it with my hand and put my ear up to the Sheetrock. It was quite apparent where at least the vast majority of the bees are located.

One thing that occurred to me: the area where the bees are is in the slanted area where the wall transitions to the roof. Presumably the combs are all going to be built in that manner, basically oriented in a 45 degree slant. When I put the combs into frames should I try to mimic this or just put them in vertically?


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

bison said:


> When I put the combs into frames should I try to mimic this or just put them in vertically?


Mimic. I have had better success when I salvage less comb.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

bison said:


> Pretty easy - I felt it with my hand and put my ear up to the Sheetrock. It was quite apparent where at least the vast majority of the bees are located


 Always put the comb, to the best of your ability, as it was in the wall. Meaning, the top of the comb always goes at the top of the frame. Think of it as in angles/degrees (no flipping). If they are only in that slant, it will be interesting to see how they built there comb, particularly short pieces or long. I always try to make my cuts fit directly into my deep frame. Does the old cavity have a filling? Where are they located in relation to the patch?


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> : Does the old cavity have a filling? Where are they located in relation to the patch?


I don't know if the old cavity was filled. The owner says that they sealed it up after the prior cutout. The current hive is just past the patch in exactly the same orientation. I suspect that it's just one joist over from the old location.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

bison said:


> I don't know if the old cavity was filled. The owner says that they sealed it up after the prior cutout. The current hive is just past the patch in exactly the same orientation. I suspect that it's just one joist over from the old location.


Just past the patch/one joist over in what direction (north, south, east, west)? What do you mean you suspect? I thought you located them? Don't count on the comb being in the same orientation, if that is what you mean, besides you don't know how it was before I don't know what the owner's ultimate goal is, but if they don't want this to be a reoccurring issue, someone needs to fill & seal (the inside & out) properly, when it is all said & done.


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> Just past the patch/one joist over in what direction (north, south, east, west)? What do you mean you suspect? I thought you located them? Don't count on the comb being in the same orientation, if that is what you mean, besides you don't know how it was before I don't know what the owner's ultimate goal is, but if they don't want this to be a reoccurring issue, someone needs to fill & seal (the inside & out) properly, when it is all said & done.


What I suspect is that there's a joist that divides the cavity that's patched from the cavity that they're in, so that they're not in the old cavity. The hive is located in the area in the attached picture. By orientation I mean that they're in exactly the same kind of cavity (the one that's sloped at a 45 degree angle) as the old one, though I don't know what the comb inside looks like. I'd guess that it's going to be drawn at an angle across the sloped cavity so the comb pieces will be more parallelograms than rectangles.

Yes, they will have a roofer seal it up after we get the hive out.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Just cut the 45 degree angle off the top of each comb, then cut to fit in the frame. Orientation will be fine then. Take pics
Hopefully the comb is parallel to the wall and not perpendicular.


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

"I can tell by the sound and temperature of the wall" may work for locating the bees but not always. The first cut out I did, I thought I knew where they were by the sound and temperature. Turns out they were four feet away once I opened the sheet rock. Big hole, no bees!

From your photos, you're probably correct. You might do small exploratory holes first to confirm the location before tearing out a large area. 

Unless you fill the space with insulation, another swarm will probably be there (like this swarm reoccupied the wall) in a year or so. Bees can smell the location of an old nest/hive and will try to reoccupy the cavity.

Good luck and take /post lots of photos/video.


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

Got it done... mostly! We opened up the sheetrock to expose the comb and started vacuuming. Bees were very gentle, just used a bit of smoke. They'd filled the cavity completely with comb handsome went into the two adjoining cavities as we did the job, so we had to open more of the ceiling up. I had no idea how messy it would be as we cut out the honeycomb, honey was literally dripping down on us as we did the job! Filled most of a deep with comb, tossing out the empty comb and comb with drone brood and keeping the honey in a separate bucket. We vacuumed a ton of bees. Didn't find the queen.

Afterwards we combined the vacuum deep and the deep with the comb in it and put both on top of the refrigerator to the right in the photo. We removed the metal plate that divided the vacuum deep from the other deep and left it hoping all the bees now come into the hive. We didn't see a lot of fanning at the entrance as I'm used to with swarms - is this meaningful? There were only stray bees left in the cavity, no bunches that might hide a queen.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

Sweet,, I guess that answers the question of the old cavity being filled? Without spotting/capturing the queen, I like to see fanning..as a sign she's in the boxes. How much of the comb/frames you put in the deep had eggs/larvae/brood? Hope your vacuum suction was on point. I wouldn't just toss out the empty comb & drone comb.,could be useful for something How did you prepare the hive & the original entrance outside the structure for the evening? Most likely will be more bees to vacuum tomorrow.


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

Almost all of the comb had eggs/larvae/brood - ten frames worth. I couldn't access the entrance outside the garage as it's a very long drop down, so we left the hive with the bees and comb in it near the cavity inside the garage. I'm going to head over there now that it's dark and see if they're all/mostly inside the hive box.

Updating... I went over and most of the bees were inside the box, but there was also a single cluster of bees in the cavity that was about the size of three fists. I vacuumed them into the hive box, getting almost every bee. I also blocked the entrance to the cavity from outside by stuffing a rag into the crack they were entering thru. I then moved the bees to my backyard apiary. I'm hopeful that I got the queen as there were only a few stray bees left in the cavity.

Plan tomorrow will be to remove the vacuum deep and replace it with a second deep of foundation. Figure I'll give it a week at least before inspecting - does that make sense?


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Sounds like a good removal. Most of my removals are taken back with me right after the removal. I used smoke one time on an angry colony. With my bee vac I designed, I can combine the bees right away after the removal back on their combs. They all gorged themselves on honey (just after the initial smoking) (typical) and ended up "tossing their honey" back on themselves on the ride to the apiary. Not a good site to see thousands of bees soaked with honey. Most did not make it. 
I really make an effort to NOT use smoke as it can make the queen run and may be the demise of the hive.

How do you like the aluminum platform? Last time they went on sale I bought eight of them. Love them.


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## Joebrad (Jan 26, 2016)

Nice job. Did you make your bee vacuum yourself? How is it setup? I want to make one soon. Looks like a great way to capture all of them. I have seen some of the 5 gallon bucket designs but this looks like a better way.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

bison said:


> I also blocked the entrance to the cavity from outside by stuffing a rag into the crack they were entering thru.


You may consider removing the rag to let neighboring bees clean up loose honey drippings before sealing permanently. I trust that some of the earlier comments make more sense now.



> Figure I'll give it a week at least before inspecting - does that make sense?


I generally do not feed bees. But this is one of the times you will likely need to feed a little if you did not put honey in the frames.


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

Joebrad said:


> Nice job. Did you make your bee vacuum yourself? How is it setup? I want to make one soon. Looks like a great way to capture all of them. I have seen some of the 5 gallon bucket designs but this looks like a better way.


No, my friend bought it. It is nice, though we had problems controlling the suction level. At times it would barely suck, perhaps clogged with bees??


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

Mr.Beeman said:


> How do you like the aluminum platform? Last time they went on sale I bought eight of them. Love them.


Love it - got it at Lowes the day after Thanksgiving a couple years ago dirt cheap. Wish I'd gotten another one or two!


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

Video here: https://youtu.be/Jk-mKli20qo

Camera got knocked over mid-way, but you'll get the idea...


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