Author Topic: Removing bees, they absconded into tree  (Read 2339 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

omnimirage

  • Guest
Removing bees, they absconded into tree
« on: January 16, 2018, 10:08:40 pm »
I was removing a feral beehive recently. It's been there only for a few months, but has became rather large during that time. I cut out all the comb, and put the brood in my super attached to rubber bands. I didn't give it enough time, I'm coming to realise that with bee removal jobs, I need to complete it before night, as otherwise the bees aren't that mobile and instead of walking into the super like I want them to do, they just cluster up wherever they land. I even experimented with putting probably too much lemon grass oil, they responded to it but didn't move into the hive like I wanted.

So I left, and returned the following evening. There was a fair amount of activity happening in the super, decent amount of bees in it. However, the majority of the hive ended up flying and clustering in a tree just 15 or so meters away. Could it be possible that there was two queens, that one queen stayed with the super and the other flew into the tree?

I'm not sure why they decided to swarm. The super may not have been quite big enough for them but they still would have had a fair amount of space available. Is lemongrass oil not that effective in enticing swarms to move into a super? Is them flying off into the tree, an indication that they may have genetics that induces them to abscond and not stick in a hive?

Offline apisbees

  • Global Moderator
  • Gold Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 3723
  • Thanked: 331 times
  • Gender: Male
  • Location: Vernon B.C.
Re: Removing bees, they absconded into tree
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2018, 06:16:02 am »
This is a hard one to answer with 100 percent accuracy but. Are you sure the queen is in the hive? check if they start to build cells. Was there Queen cells in the cutout? If yes there could be 2 queens. was the colony separated in 2 different areas in the tree, if so could have been 2 colonies. also from time to time you do find 2 queens in one hive. So I would think that there could be a queen in the swarm, unless you set up the hive to far away and the bees could not communicate the new hive location. A breeze could take the sent away from the cluster. You also said that you ran out of daylight so the that could find each other did and clustered together.
OR I don't know. It requires more investigation.
Honey Judge, Beekeeping Display Coordinator, Armstrong Fair and Rodeo.

omnimirage

  • Guest
Re: Removing bees, they absconded into tree
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2018, 07:29:25 am »
I'm not sure if the queen is in there. I didn't see any queen cells. I figure I gotta check up on them sometime soon to check for queen activity. When would you suggest to do so, around the five day mark maybe? The colony was all together as one large clump in the tree. I'm under the impression that multiple queens during a swarm is relatively common. They clustered together a few hours before sundown.