# Feral hive in backyard



## n8ozzy (May 25, 2016)

I have never kept bees before, but my dad has had a feral hive in his backyard for probably 5 years now. I was going to set a bait hive next weekend but it swarmed about 30ft away about 3-4 days ago behind an old porcelain sign hanging on a wooden fence. He doesn't mind the one hive but certainly doesn't want a second. Its about the size of my two fists put together. How soon will they start to establish themselves and how long do I have to try to remove it? I have a 10 frame deep that I'm thinking about trying to capture them in. Do I simply knock/brush them into the deep with some frames and foundation in there? Suggestions? Thanks in advance!


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## frustrateddrone (Jan 31, 2015)

Get suited up in a bee suit. I don't know what the area is your working in, but safety first feller! Animals and humans need to be number 1. Probably just take your hand with a glove and scoop them up and put them in the box. The queen is what you want. Get the queen the bees will follow shortly afterwards. Make sure your entrance to your bee hive is sealed with breathable material like filter floss for pond or poly fil or some screen material will work too. Just so the bees you put in don't come out the entrance. Don't use the entrance reducer as you want the bees to be cool and have plenty of air. Looking at your temps you were 98 today and your in the low 80's. 
Put about 3 frames inside and a mason jar type feeder. A jar with a metal lid. Feed sugar water inside the bee hive. 1 part water to 1 part sugar by weight. Take a nail and poke very small holes in it about 5 to 10 holes in the metal lid. Just barely get that nail in it. After 48 hours clear the entrance and put the entrance reducer on with the 3" opening on it. The jar should be a small jar you can just use a few pieces of wood to prop the jar up. Oh..... When you


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## cervus (May 8, 2016)

frustrateddrone said:


> Oh..... When you


???! You left out something. LOL. I'm visualizing the OP, dressed in a bee suit, gloves, and a empty hive body screaming at his computer, "When you *WHAT?!*":scratch:


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

Find the queen, cage her, put her in a box. Scoop in the rest of the bees, place box nearby where they were clustered. Then move them around nightfall or sunrise when all the bees are inside, screen over the entrance when you move them.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

If we find a nice little ball of bees like that, we don't wait for them to get established. We shake them into a box and establish them in a hive, quick, before they have a chance to pick some place difficult.

There are people here who have done it without protection. They're usually remarkably calm when swarming. Although, if that old feral colony has ever been ill-tempered, the bee suit is probably not a bad idea.


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## n8ozzy (May 25, 2016)

When I WHAT!!!??  I will definitely use protection. So it seems pretty straight forward as far as getting them into the box. They seem to be pretty accessible. Also outside of the old hive were a few hundred or so dead bees scattered around the pavement. My dad said he had never seen that. Is that normal after swarming? I went and looked at the old hive and there were also a ton of bees around the entrance of the hive. Again, is that normal? I will post a pic shortly...


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## n8ozzy (May 25, 2016)

View attachment 25982


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## n8ozzy (May 25, 2016)

Sorry its such a crappy photo but it was dark... That is the old hive. The bees are in the center of the photo on the outside of an old gas pump (their home). I would say there are at least one thousand of them on the outside, maybe two. It was about 9 o'clock at night. It was a hot day so perhaps they were just trying to cool off still?


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

n8ozzy said:


> When I WHAT!!!??  I will definitely use protection. So it seems pretty straight forward as far as getting them into the box. They seem to be pretty accessible. Also outside of the old hive were a few hundred or so dead bees scattered around the pavement. My dad said he had never seen that. Is that normal after swarming? I went and looked at the old hive and there were also a ton of bees around the entrance of the hive. Again, is that normal? I will post a pic shortly...


A hive at the peak of summer probably has a population turnover of something like 3000 bees a day. Any active hive generally has a lot of dead bees in front of it. Some days something may set off housekeeping and you may notice more. Some days the undertaker bees don't feel like flying ten feet away carrying a corpse, and just push them out. Could be that high temperatures have made the undertakers less ambitious.


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