# Old hungry swarm survivability



## bobp (Mar 4, 2014)

Has anyone dealt with old hungry swarms? I got one yesterday evening that had been hanging 5-6 days the folks said before they called anyone.

Needless to say they only take 3 days of supplies with them so they were not feeling friendly. 

What has been your survivability experience with older swarms?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Usually put them in a hive with drawn comb and a gallon of syrup and they will do fine. Watch the queens laying amount that more than any thing will start a decline in the colony size. Replace the queen when you see the old one isn't doing as she should.

 Al


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## SmokeEater2 (Jan 11, 2010)

I collected a swarm like that 2 years ago, Only mean swarm I've ever encountered and I wound up having to put on my bee jacket and hood before it was over.

They were on a tree branch in a backyard and the weather had snapped cold right after they got there and trapped them in a cluster for warmth. By the time the homeowner called me they had been there long enough to be really hungry,cold and irritable. 

I took a couple of frames of honey along with a couple of frames of drawn comb in a medium box and their attitude changed a lot once I knocked them off the limb into the box and they found the honey.

I did replace the queen last year and the colony is doing fine.


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## bobp (Mar 4, 2014)

Well we lost this swarm. They were doing well it looked like. Eating the sugar water etc. Checked them yesterday after work, they were gone?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

When you say gone do you mean dead in the hive or the hive was just empty?
If it were the later, it happens. Helps to give them a frame of brood to look after.

 Al


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## bobp (Mar 4, 2014)

Gone in as disappeared.... I guess they found better accommodations...


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Yes that happens. I have had them leave a nice double deep box with drawn come and move to a hollow in a near by tree. I called them the hitch hikers because I had drove round trip 37 miles to get them.

I found two things to help keep them in the pick up hive. One was to put a couple frames of brood in with them if I had it. That seemed to work best.
I made up a catch hive with a queen excluder the workers had to pass thru to leave the hive. that didn't always work because the queen had reduced in size enough to get thru the excluder.

 Al


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## bobp (Mar 4, 2014)

well we got another swarm yesterday... this time I got a frame of brood... in all stages capped to eggs... and put in with them... hoping it'll give them something to get busy with and the Queen will go on and lay a few herself? Time will tell...I intend to feed them until they fill out the second brood box after I add it.


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## bobp (Mar 4, 2014)

Swarm status update.
Of the three swarms we kept two did very well. I re-queened two of them and they exploded.
The third struggled hard. They never did even draw out 5 full frames in the original nuc. I finally decided they would not likley survive the winter. I found the queen, pinched her, shook off all the bees from the frames and put them in a super on one of the other swarms. So Far so good. It also appeared the dis homed bees moved into one of the other hives.


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