Our one hive that survived the winter is not building up fast. Very little brood, and they are taking no syrup. They have plenty of honey so perhaps this is the reason. I found the queen easily. The packages are very active and have many frames of capped brood. This have did not even have a half of a frame of brood. Is this a problem or might these bees be waiting for a flow?
Try requeening the hive. I would not try to nurse it along. (I've done that) I would also boost it a little with some capped brood.
ajm
How is the population? A queen is limited by the amount of bees there are to cover the brood. If the population is low, requeening is not going to help. If feasible, providing some supplemental heat helps them build up quicker.
If one of your other hives is doing good and have plenty of capped brood you might shake the bees off a frame of "sealed" brood and put it in the week hive.
If you have some extra frames, put a new frame in the colony you take the brood from in case there is some virus in the weak colony. :)doak
Hello i also have the same problem with one of my hives but i found out that they had so much honey in the brood chamber that the queen had to only lay in the cells as they empty. I went in to check on them and boy i was surprise they are using the honey that they had to not only feed themselves but they are building up nicely they are not working like my others but i guess because of all of the honey they had and not alot of room there is not much for them to do but they have several frames full of brood and capped i even saw young bees doing thier play flight so i guess if they do not have the room for the queen to lay then it will slow them down but mine are working a little.
Thomas
Quote from: thomas on April 21, 2009, 01:26:01 AM
Hello i also have the same problem with one of my hives but i found out that they had so much honey in the brood chamber that the queen had to only lay in the cells as they empty. I went in to check on them and boy i was surprise they are using the honey that they had to not only feed themselves but they are building up nicely they are not working like my others but i guess because of all of the honey they had and not alot of room there is not much for them to do but they have several frames full of brood and capped i even saw young bees doing thier play flight so i guess if they do not have the room for the queen to lay then it will slow them down but mine are working a little.
Thomas
This is my guess also, a honeybound hive will dwindle with more food than they can consume in a year. A honeybound hive is also too restricted in brood production to swarm. I would pull 2 frames from the brood chamber and replace them with combless frames to force the bees to begin building comb. Once the comb building begins don't be surprised to see eggs laid in the unfinished combs.
Place the drawn combs above the hive in a super, which will also give them more area to drawn comb. You should then see the bees moving honey stored in the brood chambers out into the new frames and the brood production should pick up drastically.