emergency swarm box idea

Got a message on Facebook from a guy I had sold some chicken pullets to a while back, this wondering if I knew anything about bees. He might have seen all the bee hives around and under the eaves my chicken coop .

I said "yep! that while still learning, I had enough knowledge to get me into mischief - as I am hoping to retire from the 9-5 in the next couple of years to do bees full-time".

“What do you need?” I asked

Seems he had a bee swarm taken up residence in a boat on his rural property. He would like to keep them for pollinating fruit trees on his block

Further questioning identified – no bee suit, no gear, no hive box. But could I help?

Well yes – but all my boxes are currently tied up in splitting and pollination services etc

(soooooo need to make some more hive boxes, buy more frames etc - and I mean real soon!)

Let me think about it – which worked out well given he was working elsewhere and wouldn’t be about for a week or so which gives me time to find a solution

The solution came in form of a foam broccoli box (grabbed 6 of them 12months ago and they had sat in my shed since – yeah the bees will eventually chew it out but perfect for short term until he can get a better box etc

So with my dabbling into CAD and 3D printing – I quickly designed some ventilation pods and an entrance with a landing platform that could be closed if needed – even with a queen excluder on entrance maybe.

Using calipers I measured the thickness of the wall of foam box and adjusted the design to suit making the wall thickness a constant in the CAD software - easy as!

The plan would be to get hive into this emergency box by putting any comb from boat into the frames in the emergency box. Then place it near entrance that bees were using to get into the boat - till they get use to temp hive box. then transfer location of boat - tranfer bees int oproper hive box etc.

Once parts designed and 3D printed, the box was marked and then the holes to right size cut out. put front vents down low and another pair on back but up high to help with air flow.

Results looks good, standard frames fit in well with a touch of wriggle room for bees

Will update you how hive transfer goes in a week or so

Update on the 4x walk away splits from 3 weeks ago - 

              bugger! 

                      not great!

Four hives needed a fresh frame of eggs and brood to boost them along. 2 had no brood at all, 2 quite sparce - so bad or weak queens present. a frame of brood might to the trick!

So now to wait a few more weeks to see if queens can be made.

Though hives strong in numbers - lots of stores of honey and pollen (a couple of colours here) - I woudl like to see a nectar flow happen in the trees around my rural block.