Finding A Bee Colony A New Home

Four gains and four losses. That’s my hive transfer history. How does this novice beekeeper get and keep a hive to stay put and thrive in a new brood box?

I’ve tried four times and four times I’ve failed. This week, I had the opportunity to relocate another hive. It’s the fifth relocation attempt, one that had established itself in a portable BBQ on the other side of the city.

Before I reveal the outcome of this current bee challenge, let me revise the last few and what happened to them.

• First — A roadside hive was found in a water mains box. Small (possibly old) hive. Two complete combs with another two rotten, disused ones beside them. They didn’t have the numbers to recover from being.
• Second — Gas meter-box hive. Lots of honey and brood. It was a healthy colony, but I didn’t know about orientating the comb the right way up. Oops!
• Third — This colony is the only swarm I’ve ever collected. The bees were trying to set up a home in an outdoor spa when I received a call from a friend to save them from being sprayed with insecticide. I got them out, and they went into the brood box nicely and easily, but I should’ve put a Queen excluder on the hive’s front door. She escaped sometime during the night. The rest absconded almost immediately. Bye bye Queenie. Bye Bye bee colony.
• Fourth — A neighbour had a well-established hive inside a wall that they wanted out. We took the wall apart and found enough comb to fill 3 hives. I took the best of the brood comb and honey stores and filled my box with them and every bee I could get inside it. Most of the bees went back to their home the next day. Yes, getting bees from a neighbour isn’t ideal. I now know about acquiring them from places many miles away (otherwise, they’ll just return to their original home by habit).

I ordered a bee nucleus from a local supplier last season, but unfortunately, there were more new apiarists ordering nuclei than they could supply. I went without any bee practices for a year and a half.

To be honest, Four failed attempts really knocked out my enthusiasm. My brood box stood empty on its stand in my garden while I continued to write my book. I didn’t actively look for more bees, swarms or anything for all that time. If bees found their way into the box, then so be it — but I wasn’t keen to chase them. And then a call came in from a friend’s friend. His BBQ had become populated sometime over Christmas and he wanted them gone in the kindest possible way. It was Margo who pushed me to collect them. If it were up to me, I’d have said no.

ABOUT

I’m glad I said yes and drove the 1.5hrs to get the hive. I didn’t know what to expect when I lifted the lid. It turned out to be a highly active, well-established young hive. Honey, honey and more honey! Brood, Queen cups, and lots of bees!

Two trips were made to acquire this group, one to move the Queen, the comb, and as many bees as possible across to my brood box (and then leave it near to the original hive for a day), and another one (at night) to seal-in the bees. The night is a good time to do it as most of them will be inside my box with their queen. Closing the front door at this time is easy. It’s just a matter of covering it with something and then putting the filled box into the car and then driving it back to my place.

Some time has passed now, and I can honestly say that this lot hasn’t died, absconded or been weakened by the transfer. It’s surviving and thriving. It helped that the hive was new. It helped that they had filled the BBQ with bees, brood, and lots of honey-filled combs. It was also beneficial that it’d been a warm Autumn after the move.

Less than a year later, we harvested a large honey jar from the growing hive. We also added another brood box to the existing one for the upcoming season so they could expand their population. We only took one frame of honey because none of their frames was totally full. I sensed the bees might’ve needed what they had and kept our theft minimal.

Two brood boxes make two engine rooms. Two engine rooms mean more honey production. The trick is taking honey when the bees reach peak output and then leaving it alone before it’s in decline so they can have their honey stores before the season turns.

Are you a bee person? What do you think? Am I on the right track?

–Michael Forman (Author of Adult Fiction)