Hi John
 
You have a nice bee removal lined up.
 
Some comments :  - when removing combs and tying them into frames it
usually results in a mess no matter how tightly one fastens the
combs. My advice is to simply take all the brood and put it in an
insulated box, then put it in an empty brood box above an excluder in
a strong hive. Those bees will hatch the young bees and use them.
Take a few frames of brood from these bees for your moved hive. (The
moved hive will be in chaos for a few hours, in which time at your
time of year most of the brood will be chilled, and the bees will
just waste time and energy raising useless bees.
 
What you want is/are the pollen reserves. I have found for some
reason bees will fix pollen combs neatly into a frame, but always
seem to bend brood combs. I think this is because brood combs are
maintained at a higher temperature. Then one ends up with a wavy
comb, or at worst, two frames stuck together. This is not good.
 
For living space for the bees - give them foundation and lots of
honey or sugar water. They will draw fresh combs very fast and will
be far healthier.
 
A swarm hived straight onto foundation with pollen reserves seems to
draw faster than one without - don't ask me why, but it is a
definitely noticeably thing.
 
As regards the moving of the bees - the trick here is to find the
queen. Take her away and hold her for about ten minutes. Bring her
back and the bees become very excited and make a sort of hissing
huming sound and all move towards her. They will follow your hand
with the queen in it to the new box, walking along the ground.
Usually they will reorientate the next morning as this 'scenting' to
show the queen seems to have the effect of making them believe they
have swarmed. (Note - this getting the bees to move only works once
all brood is removed - before this point they will rather sit and
stay with the brood)
 
Hope this helps
 
Keep well
 
Garth
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
Eastern Cape Prov.
South Africa
 
Time = Honey
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