The plan was to move the wild bees from the temporary waxed cardboard nuc that they have been living in since Stacey and I captured them in early December into a newly assembled and freshly painted hive body.
I thought we would have to completely rip apart the existing comb, brood, and honey in the existing network of comb that the honey had originally drawn out on the branch that we took from the starfruit tree and just placed down inside the nuc box along with 1 frame with foundation and no comb. Since December, the bees have drawn at least 3 times as much comb out in irregular pattern (at least to me) within the enclosure and a bit on the one frame that we placed in with the existing hive.
Luckily, another beekeeper, Earl, stopped by and had a much better idea. He had cut a piece of plywood about the same size as the hive body with a square cut out in the center. We place this board on the top of the new hive body and then place the waxed cardboard nuc, top down, on top of the board. This setup will force the bees in and out of the new hive body and allow them some time to drawn out new comb on the 10 frames with wax foundation in the new hive body and still allow the brood in the old temporary quarters to fully develop and the new bees to emerge, allowing the bees to use the existing pollen and honey stores as well as time to gradually get used to and migrate into the new digs. It worked great and was much less stressful on us and the bees and quick.
The bees are quite active now with the days warming up into the 80s ...
I've refurbished the older hive bodies from the 2 hives that died out, repainted them and I'm now ready to find 2 more wild hives and get a total of 4 hives up and working for me. I purchased 2 new screened bottom boards for these older hive bodies and hope this will help with the moderation of the summer heat in the hives as well as helping the bees to manage the mites and other pests in the hives.
