From Bunbury Bee Blog

[beeali]

Gidday from WA.. 
My dad was running 20 odd hives down at Hopetoun,I never really took much notice(I was a teenager) till a friend of ours placed a hive on our 10 acre property two months ago.
He place a bottom box with some old comb 4/5 frames and workers in it down on the fence line.
A week later he came back with a queen,which was placed in the hive.
two weeks later (too soon I think) He then placed a top box on with new frames.The bottom yet wasnt full.
Ants moved in and he removed the top box.
We have since used cinnemon to no avail ,fixed the problem with grease on the hive legs.
Had a peek in at about 5pm and counted about 40 odd bees,most being on the old comb.
Todays question    How long is it going to take to get a good active hive happening ??
Im not too sure this queen is in high gear.
cheers

[yantabulla]

40 bees.  No chance!

[dermot]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your 40 bees are either a remnant or a bunch of robbers cleaning up vacated comb. For a hive to be viable you would need to have bees numbering in the thousands. I don't know how bad your winters are but I'd suggest if they're anything like ours I'd wait till spring and pick up a swarm from a local.

[beeali]

Thanks for the reply.
Will have to give the owner a poke with a stick to pehaps take another care plan 
not looking too good at all   
Going into winter and less blossum not good either.The winters arent too cold ,well not snow just a few frosts.
Will keep reading and plugging away at this great website 
cheers

[sawdstmakr]

I was able to over winter a hive with a queen with what ended up being about a small handfull of bees that I had saved from a SHB infested hive. The only this is that I did it in an Observation hive that was in doors. They did survive and eventually swarm late in the summer but it took forever to build up the hive. It is not the queen so much but the number of young bees to cover and feed the bees. The queen only lays eggs that the bees can cover.
Jim

[beeali]

Hoppy Easter to you all..
Looks like we have been robbed. 
They came in the morning and killed the Queen and the 40 odd others and took the two frames of full honey.
No mucking around on the robbers behalf.
It took them the day light hours to do the deed.
So we have planed to leave it for the winter and start again in the Spring with a new setting for ourselves and the owner of this one.
We live in the forest so am presuming out there in a big jarrah log is a happy honey hollow 
cheers and thanks for a top website.