I've been asked to remove two decade-old colonies  from the walls of two
ninhabited buildings.    What is/are the best way/ways to get the bees
nto  Langstroth boxes?
Depends on the circumstances. The easy way is to remove an inner panel of the 
wall exposing the combs, cut them out and tie them into frames. 
Next easiest is, if you can map the dimensions of the colony with a stethoscope,
to drill a tiny hole on the edge of the colony furthest from the entrance and introduce
a small quantity of Bee Go (can anybody get any to me in the UK as I've run out?). 
The bees will rapidly troop out of the entrance where you can gather them as if a swarm.
The 3rd method, which I used last year and also did one of my apprentices using my kit, is 
to place an adapted (se below)nuc box against the entrance, sealing other exits, so the bees have no
 alternative but to fly through. Give them a few days to get used to this. Drop a couple of Porter escapes
between the entrance and the nuc and, at the same time, put a frame of brood and some empty combs
into the nuc to act as a focus for their attention.  Bees will be able to leave the colony but not
get back and will use the nuc. The queen will stop laying fairly soon but there will be lots of brood to 
hatch out and,after a while, join the cluster outside.  When, eventually, the queen has emerged, you can 
replace the Porter escapes with queen excluder. This enables the bees to rob out their own stores. At the
end of the process (allow about 6 weeks in all) take the box away and seal the entrances into the cavity
or you will be doing the same job again next year.  A variant is to introduce some eggs/larvae to the 
nuc so they can rear a new queen.
Chris


             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Access BEE-L directly at:
http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A0=BEE-L