greetings,
two years ago we found an exposed honeybee nest in one of our beeyards which
appeared to have been from a late summer swarm. Chances of their survival
over winter were likely slim here in the northeast so as an experiment we
carefully cut the sections of limbs that the combs were attached to and
suspended the entire nest in a deep and medium sized super. A feeder jar was
placed over these after the hive was relocated several miles away and the
hive was wrapped with tar paper. The hive survived the winter and a second
deep super was added in the spring. When most of the brood nest was located
in the upper super of frames the lower supers containing the original nest
was removed . Should another open colony appear we would like to try placing
it in an observation hive.
                               mac