# New in Oxford, Al



## mrflegel (Mar 23, 2014)

Welcome to beesource, I am just down the interstate from you in lincoln, Lots of things can make them leave. I think the most common would be , not getting the queen with the bees if you cought the swarm. If they moved in on their own Not having enough space would be the next on my list of suspected reasons.
Any way I can help. Mike


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Welcome to BeeSource from west AL. 

If using screened bottom boards, be sure to close them off. Swarms like it dark inside. I will put a frame of brood from another hive in the new hive to hold the swarm. Shake/brush off all the bees before putting it in the hive, then shake or dump the swarm in. I'll put a queen excluder under the hive box after all the bees get inside then push the top back to close the slot in the inner cover so they can't exit through the top. Remove the excluder after three days. By then they should have drawn some comb and should stay. If the queen is a virgin, she needs to be able to take mating flights so the excluder needs to be removed.

Good luck.


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## skipperr100 (May 6, 2016)

mrflegel said:


> Welcome to beesource, I am just down the interstate from you in lincoln, Lots of things can make them leave. I think the most common would be , not getting the queen with the bees if you cought the swarm. If they moved in on their own Not having enough space would be the next on my list of suspected reasons.
> Any way I can help. Mike


Thanks for the reply. I will keep trying. Hope to meet you someday.


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## skipperr100 (May 6, 2016)

Great info. I will be sure to close off the next one. What part of w alabama are you in?
Thanks....


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Welcome 100! 
The most important, great reading from any of the older literature, is to remember workers are girls and shake them in front of the hive and not in the hive. If it is their idea they will stay. If some tough guy locks them in where they did not choose to go they will leave as soon as they are able. There is a technique called drumming, quite different than tanging, that my mentor taught me 45 years ago -- tap on the box slowly and watch them scurry in with some remaining at the entrance tails high, Nasanov gland exposed, shouting we are home!


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

If you have access to any bees in hives, put one frame of open (not capped) brood in with the swarm and they WILL NOT leave. It doesn't have to be a full frame, or even a half a frame.

One swarm this year, I even put a frame of brood that I removed from a hive the previous day and left in the back of my truck in an unoccupied nuc overnight. The amazing thing is less than half brood died overnight. The rest was capped by the swarm in a few days. I don't normally waste brood by leaving it in the back of my truck, but there was a reason I didn't put it back in the hive I got it out of.


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## skipperr100 (May 6, 2016)

Caught another swarm, put a frame of brood in new box, dumped in bees, next day they were gone.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Open, uncapped brood? No bees on it, just a frame of larvae. 

I've never had that happen. Maybe you need to give me the swarms.


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