# Aw man (frustrated )



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Naughty, silly girls, to think about swarming in August! Don't they read any bee-instruction books? You should get them a calendar.

I don't know if this is possible, but could you cull the QC (after they can make no more) leave them hopelessly queenless for a short while, adjust their frames a bit (maybe shaking out some nectar from the combs would be possible if you built some kind of cage to support the comb) and then recombine the two parts again, putting swarm bees w/o stores back in a place with stores, and not many bees and no queen. Is your equipment such that you could figure out how to do a newspaper combine by setting the swarm in the Lang box (temporarily) on top of the TB hive, perhaps without part of its lid? I have seen some TB hives that have conventional supers set on them.

If you think about it, perhaps you can figure a way to cob some extra drawn, empty comb to a few of your TBars (again, some kind of cage might work in a pinch) to give the swarm-ers a feeling of having enough space to settle down for the winter. If you have any empty, drawn comb -even on foundation - you could cut it to make a match to the shape of TB space and attach it to the TBs, somehow. Are any of the TB combs sturdy enough that they could be scratched and left to drain out a bit?

If this just happened you have a few days before any Qcells hatch, so could you put some foundationless frames in the swarm's box to get their wax-drawing mania to start to draw some free-form comb that you could wind up attaching to your top bars in a few days.

Or can you cut off the comb on the top bars and tie it into empty frames for your Lang equipment and combine those bees and now-framed combs (culling the Qcells in the process) with the swarm in a Lang?

I really have no idea whether a departed swarm can ever be combined back. Would they realize where they were and who they were with? If the remaining cluster is undersized for the space, perhaps it would work. Maybe if you moved the TB hive, first, and put the swarm's nuc in its place to catch any foragers? That way you'd have one clearly stronger hive (the swarm) being merged with a weaker one, rather than two equal-ish sized ones which might get them thinking swarming, again. 

If you wanted to wait a bit longer, you could let the TB make a queen and then pinch her and recombine. But if it was me, I'd try to avoid having to do that ('cause I hate killing queens). Use MB's Bee Math chart to figure out how much time you have before the first QC could emerge.

Hope it all works out for you!

Enj.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

1:1 syrup or thinner is best for drawing comb. The heavier stuff seems to only get stored. I find my bees (all topbar hives) draw their comb the fastest when I insert the empty bar between drawn brood nest comb. They seem sluggish when I put the empty comb on the ends. It also helps to prevent swarming. If you have some type of follower board, I'd recommend you try and combine the 2 back into one, Immediately. The swarm that you put in the other box will only be getting started on housekeeping so not much wasted there.

I have read (but not witnessed) that a swarm can go out and then change their mind and come back to the hive. You would need to put the queen cells in a small nuc as insurance that you did have your queen. (you should know if a few days if new eggs are found). If you open up the brood nest with extra, empty bars, the swarm should decide to stay. It's a much better alternative than trying to get 2 small colonies through the winter. 9 bars is already a small colony...


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## mcon672 (Mar 5, 2015)

Thanks both great replies. I agree I would be better off recombining. I'm thinking let the swarm draw some comb (hopefully) for me for a couple of weeks while our fall flow is going. Then pinch one of the queens and combine into a lang. I could use the pinched queen for lure next spring. Yes I thought 9 bars was pretty pathetic but thought maybe it just took longer in a top bar since they don't have foundation to start on. I hate to cut the comb out, it's so nice and straight, but I think it would be better to put them in a lang so I can easily swap frames if I need to this late in the season. I'll try to leave a couple of bars of comb behind and put a swarm in the top bar next spring. Now I know to add an empty bar or two between the brood frames and not count on them to continue to build forward. Thanks again for the helpful replies. 

Mike


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

Any chance the topbars are the same length as your Lang frames? Mine are, so I can move the topbar combs and brood over to Lang nucs. They are a 5 frame deep with a 5 frame medium on top of it. In my area, I can overwinter them this way and have a spot to put a sugar brick on the top bars or a syrup feeder.


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## mcon672 (Mar 5, 2015)

So I got in the top bar this evening and found eggs, larva, and capped brood (very few capped)! OK good news got a mated queen now but how can I have capped brood if they swarmed on the 11th? The "bee math" isn't adding up. Maybe the swarm I saw and caught was an after swarm and there was a virgin in the hive plus the capped queen cells I saw? 15 days from capped queen cell to capped brood isn't possible or is my bee math off? I forgot to measure the bars to see if they would fit in a lang, when I built it I just looked at some pictures on the net and built it not really thinking about being able to swap frames/bars. Wish I had put a little more thought into it or better yet made it a long lang. The top bar combs are pretty though.


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## Knobs (Sep 20, 2014)

Remember that bees do not always read the books. 

Who knows what may have happened but occasionally the older queen stays with the original hive and the virgin leaves. Maybe the older queen was damaged and couldn't fly or maybe they didn't get her slimmed down enough to fly.


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## MariahK (Dec 28, 2014)

ruthiesbees said:


> 1:1 syrup or thinner is best for drawing comb. The heavier stuff seems to only get stored. I find my bees (all topbar hives) draw their comb the fastest when I insert the empty bar between drawn brood nest comb. They seem sluggish when I put the empty comb on the ends. It also helps to prevent swarming. If you have some type of follower board, I'd recommend you try and combine the 2 back into one, Immediately. The swarm that you put in the other box will only be getting started on housekeeping so not much wasted there.
> 
> 
> > I totally agree, I use 1:1 syrup once a week and add a new bar between to drawn brood combs. So far they have drawn one comb a week storing syrup in the top 1/3 to 1/4 of each frame and brood underneath it.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

The top bars I have get to about bar 8-9-or 10 and for some reason build drone comb for a bar or two. That's the signal to get ready. They fill that drone comb with nectar, empty it out, lay it with drones, and then come the queen cells back on bar 6 or whatever. I think it's a symptom of the bees, not the hive design but not quite so sure. 

Top bars are a unique challenge. They are a blast to watch.


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