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  • Rescuing a robbed colony

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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #1344  by Don Ember
 14 Nov 2018, 17:17
This year, I put a bait hive at a friend's property, next-door to which is a flat roof colonised permanently, over some years, by feral bees, which thrive. They of course swarm merrily and I fancied my chances of picking one up. What I got was a tiny cast. This got itself into gear, but later was robbed out. I got there to find nothing left except a few exhausted and hungry bees, with the queen. I took the hive home to the garden, fed them, put in a full double side of sealed brood and good surrounding stores and left them to get on. Almost immediately, within twenty-four hours, serious robbing by bees from my apiary a field away and by wasps began. I sealed the hive for a week, knowing that there were plenty of stores and that some of the sealed brood would have hatched. After the week, the bee robbers had given up, but the wasps were still going for it. I reduced the four entrances to one and observed. Still not enough occupants to repel the boarders, so I closed again for another five days, by which time I had sufficient house bees to guard the single hole. I now have a thriving if small colony of the original bees, my own inserted brood having done their job and passed on. Was it worth it?
 #1345  by Patrick
 14 Nov 2018, 21:19
Hi Don

Welcome to the Forum. For me the answer is yes, because by trying you have established for yourself and now the rest of us that taking small casts can be fraught with problems such as you describe. Nothing beats experience and having a go.

There is often a bit of mystique about feral colonies which I am personally a bit unconvinced about - they are often considered a proxy for “wild” bees and be imbued with potential disease resistantce by merit of being demonstrably untreated. Hmmm.

However knowing bees fondness for swarm choices based on previous occupancy I suspect many feral nest sites are successively colonised by fresh domestic originating swarms over several years rather than the same strain persisting. I think Seely reckoned on a handful of years before US feral colonies died out, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually less than this in the UK.

Bearing in mind most feral colonies will have come from uncollected domestic colonies and the queens either direct from or within a few generations of a domestic colony and probably mated to domestic drones, I am dubious they could develop unique characteristics that quick. Happy if I was proved wrong mind.

As you say there is no reason for them not to swarm freely and when answering swarm calls we are usually unaware of their origin. Incredibly I can only remember seeing one or two marked queens in collected swarms to date, which is surprisingly low.

I rather lazily assumed most people mark their queens, perhaps that is wrong. Do others do so?
 #1350  by AdamD
 15 Nov 2018, 10:28
Hi Don,
To answer you question I would say yes. If the colony works out well with the collected queen - varroa tolerant maybe - you have something you might wish to breed from. The merrily-swarming feral colony may be doing so because of a lack of nest space and they might behave themselves with more room and a stiff talking to!

I do mark my queens. I clip them too in nearly all cases - sometimes I just don't get round to it. I did lose a swarm this year (the only colony to swarm) with what was probably the only un-clipped queen.

I don't collect many swarms but I can't remember seeing one with a marked queen; it tends to be virgins and queens that fail soon after getting established.
 #1353  by NigelP
 15 Nov 2018, 17:40
AdamD wrote:
15 Nov 2018, 10:28

I don't collect many swarms but I can't remember seeing one with a marked queen; it tends to be virgins and queens that fail soon after getting established.
When I used to collect swarms about 1/2 had marked queens. This may have been exceptional because I knew where most of them came from; a village about 4 miles distant where the local district Beekeeping association chairman lived. Nasty little buggers they where.
To answer Don's question it's up to the individual how much effort they put into rescuing a colony. I rescued a colony in a hedge late September where their nest had been decimated with a hedge cutter (accidentally). Went and collected all comb and bees. Elastic banded combs into frames, fed etc. But no queen....they are doomed. Not even worth the risk of amalgamating into into viable colony as these are unlikely to be winter bees.
Lot of effort for no reward. My initial thoughts when I was rang and asked to relocate them by a concerned member of the public was this lot is probably doomed as they ended up nesting in a hedge....but went along as next to public footpath and I'm a soft touch ;)