# What did I do wrong?



## parttime (Jan 8, 2012)

I had a nice 10 frame hive set up and ready to go with new all plastic frames coated with wax, my other hive swarmed into the apple tree nice and low for easy retrieval. I cut the branch off and took it over to the empty hive and shook the ball off bees into the hive and put on the lid. I was pretty sure the queen was in the hive because bees from branch were starting to cover the hive at the top and the entrance trying to get inside. I placed an entrance reducer on the hive and left it alone until the next day, when I returned home from work in the evening the hive was empty. what did I do wrong? any advice for the next time?

Dave


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## AverageJo (Sep 24, 2010)

Seems that queen didn't like a home with plastic frames. Next time try having at least a couple of older drawn comb in the hive. The queen will see an instant place to lay her eggs and most likely stay. Good luck.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

In my experience, bees dislike plastic foundation. Also, put a little dab of lemon grass oil in your hive.

I agree with Averagejo. If you have some drawn foundation to give them that will make them feel more at home. If you can put a bit of brood in the box with them that would be perfect. Even just an inch or two cut out of a comb that contains brood and set it in the box makes a big difference.

I've got packages coming in May and I'm really glad I caught a swarm yesterday so I can put some brood in the hives for my package bees. Much less chance of them deciding to reject my hospitality that way


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

On additional technique in addition to those already mentioned: put a queen excluder at the bottom of the box so the queen can't leave.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

*"put a queen excluder at the bottom of the box so the queen can't leave." *

While it sounds like a good idea and one would think it would work it doesn't always. consider the girls have put the queen on a diet sliming her down so she can fly.

I made a box with a queen excluder screwed to the top of the screen bottom board then placed the deep above and still lost several swarms over the year that decided they didn't like the place. Now I just get a frame of brood to place in the swarms new home Havn't lost a swarm in 5 years doing that.

 Al


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

alleyyooper said:


> *"put a queen excluder at the bottom of the box so the queen can't leave." *
> 
> While it sounds like a good idea and one would think it would work it doesn't always. consider the girls have put the queen on a diet sliming her down so she can fly.


Can a share something I learned this spring? When the queen diets before leaving with a swarm, the difference is in her abdomen, not her thorax, and excluders are made based on average thorax widths. 

At our Indiana State Assn spring meeting, our speaker was Dr. Juliana Rangel who gave us an overview of research being done at Dave Tarpy's lab at NCSU.

According to several research papers, "high quality" queens have an average thorax width of 4.48mm, while "low quality" queens have an average thorax width of 4.24mm (see, for example, Table 1 in this paper by Tarpy and Caron: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/...t.al.2011b.pdf)

Your basic plastic excluder has slots with a width of 4.35mm, while most wire excluders have a wire-to-wire gap of 4.3mm (http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cus...udertypes.html)

Tarpy's lab has also examined & compared commerically available queens, and found that it's not unusual to get "small" queens with thorax widths less than 4.3mm (http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/...et.al.2012.pdf). Hence, queens going through excluders probably has less to with "slimming down" than the fact that they were likely small queens to begin with.

Hence, in my original reply, I specifically noted the use of an excluder "in addition" to other techniques.


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