Help! Wild Honey headache!

I'm an inexperienced beekeeper who's recently moved house. With a lack of space to store my two empty hives, I put them in my fathers garden, but without any frames or foundation. It now appears that one of them has been thoroughly colonised in my absence! It's too cold to open it up now, but I assume the hive is going to be chock full of random comb like a wild tree stump would be. Any suggestions for what to do? Dad wants his garden back!

That's fabulous...you have doubled your number of hives with no effort! And you get to do a cut out under controlled circumstances...I envy you. Take some video....we will all be watching. You will then be the British equivalent of JPthebeeman. I love watching his videos.....wonderful. Lucky you.

Hi, yes, it will be wild comb. The best thing to do is to add a bb over the top with proper frames in. They will use all of it. When you finally find the queen in the top box then swap them and put a QE between them. Once all the brood is out clear the box with a bee escape and all sorted! You can always move them to your own place presuming it is more than three miles away!
Good luck
Pm me to tell me where in Shropshire you are, I may be able to help
E

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Don't worry. Varroa will kill you hive in 2 years.

Finman said:

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Don't worry. Varroa will kill you hive in 2 years.

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You really talk some rubbish at times ....

pargyle said:

You really talk some rubbish at times ....

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thank god it wasn't just me thinking that, my 3 yr old hives in the garden must be ghosts then

Dad wants his garden back!

Frankly I see no problem and you are mixing up unrelated issues.

Simply move the hive (carefully and gently) away from your father's garden! Job done!

There seems to be some doubt as to the time scale here. Recently and chock full are not very useful terms.

The comb will be suspended from the roof or crownboard and perhaps braced to the sides of the box (rather depends on the time scale). The comb will not be 'like a tree stump' until you invert the roof/crownboard. You will then have the task of sorting it out. Be ready with drawn and empty frames when you do, which may be best left for another month, perhaps.

Finman said:

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Don't worry. Varroa will kill you hive in 2 years.

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Unproven rubbish again. It really is about time that you should admit that you are wrong.

dexter's shed said:

thank god it wasn't just me thinking that, my 3 yr old hives in the garden must be ghosts then

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Mine died 3 years ago.. their ghosts still poo on neighbour's car tho.

Dishmop said:

Unproven rubbish again. It really is about time that you should admit that you are wrong.

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Unproven....yeah

Finman said:

Unproven....yeah

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Am glad you agree.

You told me three years ago that mine would die the following year. I sat and watched but they didnt..........and are still there. However, despite numerous times of asking why they didnt die you never did give a reply. Why would that be?
At the moment it looks to me that sadly the majority of hives that have failed this winter were in fact treated.

Dishmop said:

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At the moment it looks to me that sadly the majority of hives that have failed this winter were in fact treated.

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You treated them too late. Varroa destroys bees mainly in pupal stage.
But that happens even in better families.

I treated my hives twice last winter with trickling ( a year ago) and I did not see mites at all last summer. Now all hives are alive and in better condition than in 15 years. We had very mild winter.

Finman said:

You treated them too late. Varroa destroys bees mainly in pupal stage.
But that happens even in better families.

I treated my hives twice last winter with trickling ( a year ago) and I did not see mites at all last summer. Now all hives are alive and in better condition than in 15 years. We had very mild winter.

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so is not treating better than treating too late?

Ah!
You didnt see any mites last year but did you treat them anyway because google says it makes them happy?

Dishmop said:

You didnt see any mites last year but did you treat them anyway because google says it makes them happy?

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That is the best practice according my 33 years experience about varroa. Don't count mites, kill them.
It is like to kill foxes before they kill your hen.

Yes, google has good researshes about treatments.

Finman said:

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Don't worry. Varroa will kill you hive in 2 years.

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Tosh!

Tis the virus that Varroa carries that kills the bees.... trickling OA is a waste of time.. only kills the phoretic mites.... and shortens the laying queens lifespan.
Where on Earth do you get this 2 year thing from... the "Requeeners guide to Beekeepering"?

SADS is an easy syndrome to treat... get some winter sun.


Yeghes da

icanhopit said:

Tosh!

and shortens the laying queens lifespan.
Where on Earth do you get this 2 year thing from... the "Requeeners guide to Beekeepering"?


Yeghes da

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k

You deliver wrong knowledge Ianhopit. Mite does not kill... Oh dear.
Trickling does not shorten queens' life time.

2 years.... You had in Scotland a research about feral hives couple years ago. No colony lived 3 winters.

Finman said:

That is the best practice according my 33 years experience about varroa. Don't count mites, kill them.
It is like to kill foxes before they kill your hen.

Yes, google has good researshes about treatments.

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but you say you didnt have any to kill.

Phoenix Mites.

Dishmop said:

but you say you didnt have any to kill.

Phoenix Mites.

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It was not so bad as yours when you tried to kill mites, and you killed bees.
It is rare but it happens. One guy put ten fold oxalic acid concentration in trickling and killed all his 12 hives in one night.

Finman said:

It was not so bad as yours when you tried to kill mites, and you killed bees.
Read recipe.

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Your really ought get to grips with reading things properly and inwardly digesting it.

I havent tried to kill any mites so therefore not lost any hives in the process.

You ought to change your screen name to Mr Edit.

Yes, google has good researshes about treatments.

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Theres probably also a lot of papers there about MMR causing autism but then that was proven to be a load of crap.