Honey beehive in my garden

[t4haus]

Hello Everyone,

I am lucky enough to have some honeybees that have made a home in a birdbox in my garden. I want to give them every assistance that i can.

Does any one have any hints tips or advice? can i "move" them to a hive and start bee keeping?

Thanks, Martin

[eucera]

I am amazed to learn that honeybees have taken up residence in such a small space. Are you sure these aren't bumbles of some sort?

[t4haus]

Originally Posted by eucera

I am amazed to learn that honeybees have taken up residence in such a small space. Are you sure these aren't bumbles of some sort?

Well i am not 100% sure, but they look like honey bees, perhaps a photo would be in order and you could help me identify them. thanks....

martin

[Beekeeper]

t4haus You may be correct, i have removed several small swarms from bird boxes, usually this type of swarm is a cast.

The prime swarm which normally occurs anytime in May or early June consists of maybe up to 50,000 bees so they certainly would not fit in a bird box, but occasionaly after the main swarm has left their home with the old queen, a new queen will hatch and once able to fly, will sometimes take a few more bees off to new pastures, leaving another young queen in the nest to keep the existing colony alive.

This will happen if the old queen has left more than one queen cell in the nest.

Often, the first young queen to emerge will sting other unhatched queens to death through the cell, but if the colony is large, the worker bees may prevent the young queen from doing this so as to initiate a second swarm.

You could try to hive them but what you would need for the job is a nucleus hive, essentially a miniature hive containing around three combs rather than a full size hive containing 10 or 11 combs.

The problem you will have is transferring them, if they have been there more than a few days they will have started to build comb so will not be at all happy to leave it, if they have only just arrived, you would need to shake them out of the bird box onto a board placed in front of the nucleaus hive early evening, if you sprinkle sugar syrup around the mini hive it will tempt them to take up residence but they will need to be fed a half gallon of sugar syrup over around a couple of weeks to give them a good start.


Ian

[eucera]

A photo would be great. I am sure that Ian & I should be able to get somewhere between us!

[davecatt]

Fascinating Ian. As for the problem of transferring them;what about using a nucleus hive that is spacious enough to contain the bird box? Prepare the hive first and then at night when presumably the bees will be inactive, plug the entrance to the bird box and put it in the new hive,unplug the bird box and replace the hive lid.
Dave

[posie]

But they might continue to 'use' the comb in the birdbox, in the hive, defeating the object of the move.

[Beekeeper]

Originally Posted by posie

But they might continue to 'use' the comb in the birdbox, in the hive, defeating the object of the move.

Yes they would Posie also when they ran out of space chances are they would start building comb in any space remaining in the nucleus hive which would cause further problems.

To add to Dave's reply, what i would do is remove the bird box some way away and place the nucleus hive in its place, as the bird box is occupied by a swarm, all the bees are adults and able to fly so they would naturally return to where the bird box was after going off foraging, over the space of a couple of hours on a warm day most would be in a confused state going in and out of the nucleus hive looking around for their queen, then it would be easy to remove the queen from the bird box and transfer her into the nucleus which would settle down the bees, lots of food to keep them happy and all should be well.

It may mean sacrificing some young unhatched brood in the bird box but it would be the only real way to achieve what Martin is wanting.

Ian

[t4haus]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for all your valued input, i will take some pictures tonight and post them tommorow.

Just like to say what i nice kind and helpfull forum... really impressed.. thanks.