Bee Photo's of Owl House Bunch new 2 story home

I acquired a Ferrell Colony of bees the end of August.  I brought them home and put the box on a 4x4 post so that they'd acclimate and settle.  My plan was to remove them from the wooden box and put them in a 5 frame Nuc Box double deep.  Basically it's half a bee hive and another box on top for those that don't know about bee boxes.    So 10 frames in total.

I had to tear the box rear wall off to expose the hive.  Put the comb in frames and then put it in the Nuc box.  Remove the bees by hand scooping them out of the box and placing them in the Nuc box.    Placing the 2nd box on top was needed because I had too many bees.  I had about 75 percent nurse bees, so the queen definitely is a great layer.

I only put comb in 5 frames on the bottom.  The rest of the comb was honey and I didn't fool with it trying to put it in frames for the bees.  They have enough bees and nurse bees to fix the colony and get going immediately.  I stacked the honey comb on a piece of plywood for the bees to clean up any of the honey, nectar and pollen that they could in a few days.  I put the plywood touching the Nuc Box, so any nurse bees that wanted to come out and get the free goodness they could.  The nurse bees did do that from what I observed.  Good thinking on my part.

Why didn't I process the honey and keep it for myself.  One might wonder, right?  When I work with my helper and myself you have to think of the safety and what is going on and only be concerned about the bees.  Flying bees that have just had the home they lived in torn apart, they just are not appreciative of this sort of thing happening.  The concern is to get the bees moved in and the Nuc Box closed up.  Hope for the best too.  So trying to get honey comb is pretty much last on my list.  Since so much honey was in the colony I opted to just let the 3 bee hives have a free for all.  Processing honey would have been okay, but I was sticky enough and working for the 90 or so minutes dripping sweat was enough labor for me.
Sure I could have saved it and bagged it and done it the next day.  I would have had about 2 hours though of processing it and cleaning up the mess.  I also would have had to heat the honey above 130 degrees to kill any yeast in the honey to prevent fermentation.  It's just not that exciting to do such little and weighing the benefits I think the bees probably can use it much more then I can.
         
What transpired since I did the re-homing of the Owl House Bunch?   Bee hive #1 and 2 were not so happy.  They were the victims of confused bees that were trying to get in the bee hives they didn't belong to.  They were pretty much able to defend the bee hive from the  Owl House Bunch.   Lots of activity at the entrances of both hives.  I imagine some did penetrate and made it inside.  For a few days both bee hives were agitated because of this.  The ground lay littered with the aftermath of dead bees that stung, squished, stressed and stepped on.

  

The bees made quick work of the honey comb that was piled up.  The ants too loved it.  Honey drips and that too has a clean up crew.  The forager bees came back to the 4x4 post, I thought I could move them from the Owl Box to the bee stand if I could just get them on the box.  No luck after I screwed the owl house to the 4x4 post.  Oh well........  They'll figure it out hopefully.   They did.  Some bearding did occur, was not sure if they were going to stay or take off.  They stayed.  Looking at the acrylic bottom I peared in and I saw to my "HORROR" a bunch of brood that was white and dead.  Oh that's because I used wooden skewers and killed the innocent unborn bees.  I still will do skewers to hold comb VS that of use of rubber banding to hold the comb.  

What next.......  I am hoping I don't have to go into the hive and discard the larvae sitting at the bottom.   Other then that I do believe I have the queen.  The bees are not agitated, not making any overly defensive behavior of the area.   I removed some of the comb today prior to sunrise.

The photo is what I removed this afternoon that a few bees were still picking over.  It's not healthy to leave comb out in the open.  It invites wax moths and can attract 4 legged critters that I don't want hanging around.  I put the large comb in the refrigerator.  I might put some in a frame and put it in the Nuc box for the Owl Bunch to fix and use.  This will be in the box that I made in the earlier blog.  That box is for the honey stores for the bees.  Bee brood is the lower box and the bee honey food storage is on the top.  The bees do not have any comb on the 5 top frames.  Too much going on at the time to be concerned with putting honey comb in a bee hive.  It would have made a mess anyhow as honey drips down.  My thoughts are that this quantity of bees can draw comb out easily for the size of box and frames they have available to them.  Were going into Spring and have had 1/4" of rain.  Some pollen is available, so I think the bees will be just fine.

I still have to remove that piece of wood that the owl house was strapped to.  .  You can see the bees hanging out on the acrylic entrance.  That's right!  I have a piece of clear acrylic for a bottom.  Also, note the "YELLOW ROSE" in the back ground to the left.  Yellow rose of TEXAS!  Just had to point that out.  I planted 3 rose dwarf bushes in the rear of the bee hives.   I had to put wire around them because our wildlife deers and rabbits took a liking to eating them.

I believe in the queen of this hive to be a great queen that will direct the OWL HOUSE Bunch to a successful colony.  Long live the queen....  At least until next year.  Bee hive #1 will be re-queened in 2016 with a queen from beehive #2.  I really like#2 bee hive queen.  Great laying queen she is.  #1 is rather an okay queen, but not a great queen.  This is perhaps why it's good for bee keepers to have multiple hives so they have a comparison.  I wouldn't know that#1 queen is pretty much a average  queen otherwise.  #1 queen has been a disappointment.

Until next time.........  Don't swat at a buzzing bee.  They're most likely just curious.  Bees don't seek out to sting people.   Walk away.

"Zak" from Z's bees