As you remember, the Martha hive was broken and dumped by neighborhood kids. I put it back together and moved her closer to the house where Erica and I could watch her.
I came out the next morning after moving Martha about 100 feet away and I found some poor lost stragglers huddled around the stone foundation. Some were clinging to a stick so I carried that back and set it in front of the hive. Later there were no bees on it so I am guessing that they made it back home.
There were a few hundred left huddled under the foundation pieces, and I felt bad. Erica suggested that I put the Nuc box there, but at first I didn’t think this would help. The temperature was in the 50s and it was going to rain so I brought out the plastic nuc box and put a feeder full of sugar syrup next to it last night about 7pm. Before long the bees were entering the nuc attracted by the familiar smells and they were feeding at the sugar.
It rained like crazy last night with thunder and lightning. I went out this morning in the rain and there was no sign of bees anywhere at any of the three hives, but I could see some bees at the entrance to the nuc.. The sugar was half gone, around a pint or more, that I think the bees drank.
Tonight I will close up the entrance to the nuc, walk it down to the new location and open it facing the hive. I hope that in the morning, if any of the stragglers have survived, that they will be welcomed back to the colony. The stragglers are only a small percentage of the colony, but I feel bad. They were so badly mistreated by the evil neighborhood kids and they looked so cold and lonely. I wanted to help the hive in any way that I could.
