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Putting a speaker full of bees in a TBH NUC

2K views 5 replies 2 participants last post by  Gypsi 
#1 ·
Someone had a speaker full of bees at their house they insisted being moved ASAP or they'd spray them. I am not expert bee remover, but we are who they chose to contact even after I suggested others might be glad to have the bees too. Anyway... We relocated the speaker to my parents house since my yard is only big enough for my 1 TBH. My dad is really enjoying them. I have a NUC hive to finish up and when I go visit him I'd like to try and put his speaker of bees into a NUC for him to be able to actually work with them. I have no idea how to get them in there. I will have the top bars waxed and the hive ready to go, I just need to know how to get them in there with the queen. I have queen cages that are plastic Idk how to close them off correctly... From eBay. I have a top bar hive here if I need to use any of my bars with combs. They made lots of honey, but with sugar water bcz I didn't know not to keep feeding them. I stopped. I'm waiting for the honey to be pure so I'm not taking the honey for harvest until they go through it a few times so it's not sugar water honey. Anyway could I put one of those bars with the sugar water honey into the NUC hive to attract his speaker bees in there or for food? Should I just place the speaker in the NUC and they will build comb
On the wax bars eventually? NO idea what to do. Anything helps. Plant Grass Gas Grassland Bucket
 

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#3 ·
yes they probably have comb in the speaker. They have now lived there for months. Now that my bees have absconded i would really like to put these speaker bees in my TBH. the speaker doesnt look easy to open. I don't see how I can go through it comb by comb easily and find the queen. How can I put them all in the TBH after finding a way to open the speaker?
 
#5 ·
This failed. I couldn't get to all the comb because it was oddly shaped around parts of the speaker. I got to all the brood comb and tied it to the bars. The bees eventually absconded. Most were in the speaker still. I put a brand from speaker to the NUC and all their brood was in the NUC. No luck. I ruined it. I feel bad.
 
#6 ·
don't worry about it. they took off with the queen and will start over. I think that you might find Langstroth hives easier to work with on removals and hanging comb. I use medium wedge frames from dadant and rubber bands. I may have 4 sections of comb in one frame. getting the bees to go with the comb is really hard. I think if you were going to try this again you might try to put the nuc on TOP of the speaker, kind of seal it on with wood or plastic or something, and close the front door so the bees had to go through the nuc to exit. That is a trap out. There are posts about trap outs on the forum. I am working on getting the bees out of the giant diesel tanks on my truck still. I know there are queens and brood in those but cutting through metal or reaching around internal baffling I would just make a mess of it. Will try to post when I see how that goes. In the meantime don't feel bad, you are a beginner, the queen will lay many more eggs, and look up trapouts in the forum?
 
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