In the 2004 hurricane season a tall palm in a residential back yard located in southern Martin county succumbed to the tortuous winds. Over the years following the storms the telephone like tree stump was visited by insects that bored into it's surface and then birds that foraged on the insects. Eventually there were large enough holes in the tree that accommodated the nesting of a family of wood ducks. Following the wood ducks a swarm of honey bees moved into the tree. On September 24th the bees swarmed and alighted in a nearby tree temporarily until eventually flying off in search of a new home. The following day the standing stump that was once a majestic palm tree fell splitting open and spilling comb and the remaining portion of the honey bee colony on to the ground. I received a call from the home owner asking if it would be possible to move the bees into a hive box and manage them. I agreed to check out the situation and make an evaluation. It was obvious at first glance that the colony would not survive for long in its present state. I pulled out my equipment and proceeded to collect the bees using a homemade version of Robo's World Bushkill Bee Vac. I collected most of the bees after over an hour of vacuuming then proceeded to cut the remaining comb out of the split tree. I like to salvage any comb with brood if possible to give the bees something to do in their new home but in this case the infestation of small hive beetles made it impossible to salvage very much comb.
The chance of collecting the queen in a cutout such as this, is very hit or miss. I usually set the bees up in a hive box and then leave them alone for two to three weeks. When I checked the hive after this waiting period I knew something was wrong when I only saw drone brood.
Upon closer inspecton I noticed what I had only read about; multiple eggs in many of the cells. This is an indication of a laying worker bee. In an attempt to salvage the hive a worker will take over the duties of the missing queen by laying eggs. Unfortunately the worker was never mated so all the eggs that hatch and mature into an adult will be drones.
It's interesting to see in some of the cells that had multiple eggs more than one larvae hatched. Two or more larvae developing in the same cell quickly consume all the royal jelly and bee bread placed in the cell by the nurse bees. It's unlikely that two pupae would develope from a single cell.
The only recourse I had was to combine the bees from this cut out hive with another existing hive in my apiary.
