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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 7 Jun 2001 19:14:55 EDT
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Mark,
The bees are NOT going to leave the doghouse and start living in the hive.
Why should
they?  There is no BAIT in the hive, only a lot of work to draw the
foundation.

Other than taking the doghouse apart and finding the queen to remove her to
the hive, you will have to get the bees to move to the hive, raise a new
queen there or install a new queen, and finally the old queen in the doghouse
will die there for lack of bees.

By the way, the BEST BAIT you can possible use is a frame of OPEN brood; and
honey or sugar is the WORST bait you can use because it attracts robber bees.

Here is what you will have to do to save the doghouse. Seal up the dog
entrance. Drill a 1" hole in the center of the dog entrance covering.  Using
a piece of screen wire, make a funnel out it with the big end having a
diameter of about 6" and the small end having a small hole diameter of only
about 3/8"; and seal this funnel LARGE end over the dog entrance covering
with the tiny small end facing OUT.  Put a frame of OPEN brood, not capped
brood, with adhering bees in the hive and place this hive entrance quite
close to the small hole of the screen funnel and wait about 30-60 days.

The doghouse bees can easily leave the doghouse by entering the big end of
the screen funnel and go off flying after the pass through the tiny end of
the screen funnel.  But upon returning, they can't find that tiny hole in the
screen funnel and they are attracted to the open brood bait in the hive that
is just an inch or so away from the funnel.  The doghouse bees take residence
in the hive and raise a new emergency queen from the frame of eggs and larva
that is in the hive, or you can buy a new queen
and install her in the hive. After about 30-60 days, all the old bees that
were in the doghouse plus the bees that emerge from the laying doghouse queen
will have left the doghouse, could not find their way back in, and have
"adopted" the hive and the new queen in there.

This is the method used to get a swarm out of the walls of a house without
injuring
the house, but it takes time, and you must have some bee BROOD plus bees to
warm it in a hive on the outside as BAIT.  I have done this many times back
in Depression Days
to get bees FREE, because nobody had any money.

If you have any questions, write me direct at [log in to unmask], and I will
answer
immediately

I hope that I have helped.

George Imirie
Certified EAS Master Beekeeper
69th year of beekeeping in Maryland

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