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Susan, thank you for the suggestion. I don’t know when the fence construction will begin and I’m not even sure how long it will last. It might be just a weekend project and ideally I could leave the hive as is but I don’t want a worker to be stung, that’s why I need the precaution to close it or do something to divert their flight as you suggested.

I will look into the reed fencing idea. Thank you so much!!!!

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Yes, I will take care of the hive and I will take full responsibility for it.

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David,

Thank you so much for your reply! I found a fine mesh material, and hope it will work. Another question to this would be when would I close up the hive? The night before the work needs to be done? After the sun sets?

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Susan,

Thank you for your offer and sorry for not replying sooner. I ended up checking my hive a couple of times since I wrote this topic and all is wonderful with the bees. They are making lots of honey and they seem to be thriving. My front yard now has native flowers blooming so we are feeding the bees with the best food there is. 🙂 The queen I haven’t been able to spot yet but we have brood and lots of workers entering the hive with pollen on their little legs. I’m excited about hopefully being able to harvest honey in a few months.

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Thank you! Signed and shared!

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Signed.

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We inspected but I couldn’t find any queen cells, nor the queen. Of course I’m not an expert, this is my first time inspecting a hive.

We saw though lots of capped and uncapped brood, lots of new bees were born, chewing their way into this world, and we saw some honey as well. But lots and lots of capped brood.

How can I tell the Africanized bees from non-Africanized bees apart?
Why don’t we have a queen nor any queen cells?

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Ceebs, we didn’t buy a suit as we didn’t need any for just capturing a swarm by luring them into a hive box. Now that we have a swarm and the hive box is ready for inspection, we bought one suit, that fits my husband. They didn’t have my size, so I have to wait until shipment comes in. So we have one suit. For my toddler we will have to special order a suit. Hope this answers your question. And yes, Elisha is right too, it is costly to buy everything at once, so we are spacing our purchases as we need them.

Elisha and Susan, our captured bees seem to be very docile. We have been stung a few times (only one at a time and we treated each sting immediately and my husband and toddler never had any issues with swelling or otherwise) but the stinging has been provoked one way or another. Not sure if our bees are Africanized, but hopefully today I will be able to inspect the hive and tell you more about queen cells, brood, etc. inside the box, and the temper of the bees. We also bought a smoker. 🙂

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Susan,

Thank you so much for your wonderful, thorough reply!

Today we bought a box with foundationless frames and will try to capture and relocated the excess bees. We will inspect our own new hive to see if there are any capped brood and hopefully some queen cells as well, which we are planning to put into the queenless hive. This will be an interesting experiment and hopefully a successful one. I will also look into the one-way wire mesh to trap them out. Wish us luck!

Thank you again! Your answer gave me many options and made me learn much more about bees then I expected, when my husband found this hive. 🙂

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I’m curious about this as well. Our bees dive into the pool and we are out there every morning and late afternoon, rescuing whatever we can pull out of the pool before they drown. 🙁

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Thank you, Elisha for your help, as always!

Michelle, we used dried lemongrass to bait a homeless hive, and I really liked that because when the bees started to move in to prepare the box for the hive, I could observe the lemongrass being thrown out the box, so I “knew” they were cleaning house. 🙂

But I think your lemongrass oil and honey comb would work just as well.

Good luck!

Enci

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Elisha,

Would it be to bold to ask for your phone number? I’d love to talk to you if you have a bit of time. Or you can call me at your convenience at 323.697.7601 about my hive and next steps.

Thank you and I apologize if I’m asking for something that I shouldn’t. I appreciate all your help!

Enci

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Hello Elisha,

We looked into the hive and the bees started to make combs already inside the frames. We didn’t have any suits to protect us so we couldn’t pull out the frames but we saw lots of bees and about 4-6 frames have combs built on them. I think we might wait another month before we put on top a second box with new frames? And we need to buy some suits as well. What do you suggest for the next step?

Happy 4th of July!

Enci

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Teri, will do. Thank you for the tip. 🙂

Nick, I didn’t want to adopt, I wanted to attract. However, we have a hive in a light pole down the street that I will try to capture. 🙂 The bees in my yard seem to be pretty calm. Let’s hope that will stay that way. 🙂

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Elisha,

We finally have lots of bees in our hive. Woohoo! Very exciting! But I only see a few with pollen on their legs. What does this mean? Can I open the box and peek inside to see if I should put up the second box over the bottom box? There has been a lot of activity since around beginning of June or even earlier. But I’m noticing a lot more bees now and they are crowding the entrance. All those that are crowding the entrance are void of any pollen on their legs. But I see once in a while some bees fly in with pollen.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Happy July 1st!

Enci

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