Well, as I suspected would happen, clearing out that much comb from the remaining hive encouraged them to abscond. No more bees this season unless I can get some swarms. An expensive lesson.
Lesson learned: with Top Bar Hives, check the comb production right after introducing a package of bees or a swarm very often so you don't have to disrupt well developed comb to get them back on track. If you disrupt brood comb, they'll (reasonably) bail on you.
May or may not be able to get my hands on some swarms early enough this season to establish hives this year. They need time to build up their comb and honey stocks enough keep themselves healthy throughout the winter, so the later in the season you get a swarm the less chance of them surviving the winter. We shall see.
Bp
4 comments:
AFOFG. That sucks BP.
I'm really sorry to hear that dude :(
You need many very small leashes.
Hive #2 (the one in which I replaced the queen last week) absconded sometime over the last few days while we were in Oregon. The only disturbance of which I can think was opening the hive for the introduction of the new queen.
Hive #1 appears to be doing fine, I plan to take a look today and add new top bars if necessary.
Keep me updated, I'm curious how it all goes.
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