A friend of mine and I both started two hives each of us, this spring. We picked up our 3 lb packages and installed them on May 16th. I have some knowledge of beekeeping, having had bee hives 25 years ago. My friend knows nothing about beekeeping other than primarily what I have been able to share with him.
My hives are doing very well. I have two deep supers better than 80% drawn out and full of brood, honey and pollen. I just put a third medium deep super on each hive of mine last Wednesday. We both treated with Fumigillin B and have both dusted with powdered sugar during the first month after we installed the bees. We have both been feeding 1:1 syrup right along, but my bees are taking lots more syrup than his. Mine will empty 2 quarts every 2 days or so. His won't even empty a quart a week. I don't know. . . I add a few drops of lemon grass essential oil to mine. . .He doesn't. . . Is that the difference????
My friend works in another city and only comes home on the weekends, so he is not able to mess with his bees as much as I am. . .
He called me last night and was concerned that the activity and population of his one hive seemed very low. I went over there tonight and on his weak hive he only has one deep super and that has only about 4 frames drawn out. Significantly I could not find any uncapped brood and I could not find the queen. There was an open queen cell about 3/4's the way up one of the frames. There was a small bit of capped brood with several hatching as we watched. I thought that something had happened to his queen so I was going to get a frame of brood from his 'strong' hive so they could make a queen, but when I opened what he called his strong hive I was dismayed there as well.
On this one, he had two deep supers, but one was completely empty. He had added that a week ago and they had not at all started drawing it out. The lower deep had maybe 50-60% drawn out frames and had quite a bit of honey stored, but again no uncapped brood and not a great deal of capped brood. Neither could I find a queen in this hive.
There were 6 or 7 open swarm queen cells (queen cells at the bottom of one of the brood frames). . . I don't understand what happened with my friend's bees. They surely weren't so pinched for space as to seem to motivate them to swarm. With such low populations, it looks like most of the bees took off, but where are the original queens? And where is all the brood?
I really am stumped. He's calling our local bee supplier to see if he has any queens available, but it's getting so late in the year, I'm not sure whether it's worth it.
I told him I could bring a couple frames of brood over to him from my hives, but that is a long process for this late in the year. It would pretty much be the end of August before he had any brood and as low as the population is in the weaker of his two hives, I don't know they would even make it. . .
I surely appreciate any wisdom about this and suggestions as to what to do. . .
Thank you in advance
My friend talked to a local bee guy and he recommended buying two queen cells and installing them. He estimates the queens should hatch early next week. Also, tomorrow I'm going to take him two frames of brood. Still no idea as to what happened here. . .
:?
first off I wouldn't recommend putting another box with foundation on if the box on the hive is only 50 to 60 percent drawn. I use the 80 percent rule and bait them up with a frame of nurse bees and brood. you may not be queenless on either hive one sounds like an emergency or supercedere cell was made and the new queen has not yet mated. The second hive has swarm cell due to crowding or being honeybound leaving the queen not enough room to lay setting off the swarm impulse. Since there is swarm cells present I would venture to guess there is a virgin queen that has not yet started laying. I would recommend making sure there is eggs present in the frame of brood from one of your strong hives you plan on put into his to see if they will make a queen cell or better yet wait another week to see if a queen starts laying. you might concider combining the 2 hives into 1 stronger one and then split in the spring. queens will not lay anymore than what the hive can handle. one other option for the hive not having brood is the heat in mid summer during a dearth the queen will slow down. just my 3 cents.
I think my friend is going to combine them. He bought 2 queen cells to install just in case there is no queen. I hadn't thought about their being honey bound and maybe that was the problem with the swarming cells.
I very much appreciate your advice.
:) :) :) :) :)
Thank you. . .
I was also going to give my friend a couple of frames of brood from my hives, but what a fiasco that turned into today. My friend and I act like city boys sometimes and expect the critters to adhere to the convenience of our schedules and as opposed to us us having to conform to theirs. LOL that's not the way things work. . .
I knew it was a miserable day to be working the bees today 61° and alternating between drizzle and downpour, but my friend and I both work all week so it was get the brood for him today or have to wait until next weekend and that seemed like too long to wait. I got dressed in my hat and veil, my shoulder length canvas gloves with the elastic closure band at the top, my zip up and drawstringed jacket. . . I stuffed my jeans in my high top boots and laced them tightly. Just as I was ready to walk out the door, I felt my cell phone buzzing on my hip, so I disassembled my suit down to where I could access the phone and talk on it. It was my wife letting me know her plans for the afternoon. . .I dressed back up and made my way out the door.
This hive, located in my backyard, has just been a pleasure to work. Up to this point, I've not even worn a veil or gloves working them and never been stung. . .but they are getting very very strong and like I said, I knew that today was not the day to be messing with them, but I went ahead in the face of common sense.
I have 4 boxes on the hive. The top box is a medium super in which I have 2 wide mouth quart jars filled with 1:1 syrup sitting on lathe, (like rails to keep them up off the inner cover opening) with nail holes punched in the lids for feeders. The next box down, again is a medium super with plasticell only put on a week ago that they are drawing out. The bottom 2 boxes are deeps and chock full of bees. Bees are covering virtually every frame. From the moment I opened the top deep the bees were on me. I did not use smoke. I don't know how much difference it would have made. I thought I could get along without it, but from the first I had to walk away a couple of times and let them settle down a bit before going back in.
In my inspection, I was surprised at how little brood there was in the top deep. There were no full frames of brood. I didn't see any uncapped brood. There was a smattering of capped brood on 4 or 5 of the frames with big empty patches in the center of the frames where brood had hatched. It looks like the queen has pretty much shut down in that deep anyway. The pollen is thick. They have several nearly solid full frames of pollen. I've never seen so much pollen.
Just as I started into the lower deep, again I felt a vibration/buzzing which I took to again be my wife calling me on my cell phone, but reaching to my hip. . . my cell phone was quiet. Much to my dismay and very quickly turning to actual pain and anguish, in my haste to change clothes after church, I had forgotten to zip up the fly on my jeans. . .
It's always the little things that get you. . .The old adage about it being too late to close the barn door after the horses are out, well it equally applies to being too late to zip up your pants after the bees are already in. . .Oh my, I was a doing a dance in my back yard. . .
Game. . .set. . . match bees. . .
Bees 6 (3 stings on the chin. . .3 further south)
Dave 0
I had to regretfully call my friend and tell him that I would be delivering no brood to him this afternoon. . .I was able to peek at a couple of fames in the lower deep and I just didn't see anything frames that would make that much of a difference to him. I mean a few hundred cells of capped brood is not going to make or break his hives. . .
Anyway, live and learn. . . checking the fly will now move to the top of my bee suit checklist. . .
:shock:
Not Zipping up is the sign of the start of old age.
Not Zipping down means you have reached old age ! :brian:
:imsorry:
Bee-Bop