In a message dated 96-07-25 01:04:08 EDT, [log in to unmask] (Ian
Watson) writes:
 
<< So..i tried putting a box
 of dark comb ontop...plus a box of foundation...but nothing has
 happened...  The queen refuses to come up into my equipment and lay....
 How do i get her ..and the colony..up into my sturdy equipment to i can
 move them to my apiary.   I think it would be a shame to not take
 advantage of this queens obvious characteristics.. >>
 
    Get yourself a rubber mallet.  Smoke the entrance heavily, then begin a
regular thumping on the lower box.  The bees will all run upward into the new
box.  Keep smoking and drumming steadily with the mallet, until the upper box
is full of bees; likely they will begin spilling over the edges.  Put an
excluder under the new top box.
 
   Wait a couple days, and check the frames in the top box for eggs.  If you
have eggs, the queen is in that box.  Let her be, until  all brood has
emerged from the lower box.  Then it can be removed and cleaned up, or
disgarded.
 
    If the queen has not moved up, try it again.  It is not difficult, and
drumming does not seem to make the bees aggressive.  In fact it calms them.
 
   I do not like to drum bees unless there is a good reason.  I'm sure there
is a lot of stress for them, because they abandon the brood; something they
would hardly ever do otherwise.    But it works.
 
[log in to unmask]    Dave Green,  PO Box 1200,  Hemingway,  SC
29554
 
Practical Pollination Home Page            Dave & Janice Green
http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html