This is a small open air colony I picked up a week ago on a swarm call. It has many fine twigs throughout the comb and I decided not to break apart the comb and string it into frames. So my strategy is as follows: 1) Allow the colony to fix any messed up comb that may of been damaged with the move. 2) Let the bees start to build up and move onto the comb frames. I will not take out anything till spring. 3) I placed this next to a very strong hive. I will remove the strong hive to another location as soon as the queen and numbers of bees seem safe. This will instantly increase the hive population by a few thousand bees. 4) I will place a super of honey above the deep brood chamber in late September. I will not do this now as I want the empty space to fill in and a natural move be made to the adjoining comb. No sense in overwhelming them now. 5) Next spring, remove any comb as part of a classroom instruction on doing cutouts. Here is the open air colony.....
Thank you Bjorn, great post. Could you explain what is happening in your step 3 a bit for me? Thanks. Mark
Correct me if I am wrong, but he will move the strong hive in the middle of the day, when the forager bees are out doing their business of checking on the local flowers and such. Bees aren't particularly picky about who's home they go into and as long as they have something worthwhile (pollen, nectar, etc), the guard bees of the hive will let them in. If he were to move the strong hive and leave the weak one in it's place, all the foragers from the strong hive would return to the weak hive with whatever they collected that day to give that hive a boost with both resources and a workforce.
Thanks, thats a very clear explanation, and a good technique to have in your "bag of tricks' for boosting a weaker hive. Thanks guys, I am learning a ton of great stuff. Mark
funny I should run across this post I got a call last night for a open air removal in a bush you gave me some different angles on what I was going to do. I think I will basically do the same as you with the exception of going with a 5 on 5 configuration for wintering. The ironic thing about this hive is in 2007 I removed a swarm from his brothers house 5 mles away in 2008 I removed a swarm from his other brrothers house 12 miles away from his and now at his house if this continues like this I will be busy for sever years since this is a good cathoic family with 11 brothers
