I recently installed 2 new packages in two brand new hives, and all the little honeys decided to join one of my nearby hives instead of staying with the queens (still caged) in their 'new hives' Only a few attendant bees (on the outside) remained with the queen. The existing hive they all moved to is only 2 weeks old, with a laying queen, and most of the combs drawn out and capped now. What would be the best way to try and coax my little sweeties back to their proper places? Should I move some frames and bees around?
I noticed bearding on the old hive (first clue), and on inspection of all three, the old hive is very crowded, supercedure cells being built (I removed them).
Should I give up and simply add more supers to the old hive, or is there a way to split these 'new' hives successfully?
Thanks!
You will need to shake bees into the new hives and keep them closed albeit well ventilated for a few days. If you are using screened bottom boards this is easily achieved.
Bees want a queen, plain and simple. Until they start laying, laying queens are much more attractive to a new package.
...JP
I see. So basically shake them in there, plug the entrance, and ensure they have ventillation? If I don't plug the entrance they will likely drift back to their now-home hive?
If you have enough from another hive to spare, try adding a frame of open larva to the packages with the still caged queen. The open larva will help to hold the bees in the nuc. Try not to add eggs or just hatched larva as they may decide to raise a queen of their own from that instead of accepting the caged queen. Check in 3 days after adding the open larva and check for queen cells being started. Just a thought.
Quote from: gconran on May 02, 2010, 10:47:52 AM
I see. So basically shake them in there, plug the entrance, and ensure they have ventillation? If I don't plug the entrance they will likely drift back to their now-home hive?
Correct. You need to anchor them, feed and closing them up, also if you have the means as Ray mentioned.
Don't forget about the ventilation, this is very important.
...JP
Thanks!
So basically, what I seem to have is a drifting problem. After analyzing it, I found that two of my hives (installed the same day) decided to both drift to an established hive - each of the hives abandoned their caged queen and joined the hive with a free queen.
I think I successfully got one split from the hive - I was able to relocate enough bees and frames to one of the abadoned hives, and the bees appear to be clustering around the queen, as well as drawing out comb in the re-established one. So for now, it looks like at least one of the two hives that drifted may be back to normal.
However, when I examined the hive that both had drifted to, in order to see what was going on, I cannot find the old queen! I've looked several times now (frame by frame, and all around the sugar syrup feeder (internal one), and no dice. She *was* marked, and easy to find before (albeit before my 10000 bees surged to 30000).
Is it possible that the bees would have killed the queen in the now bigger hive?
Since I have one hive that is totally empty except for the queen (in cage) and a few hangers-on (attendants), and if the queen is really gone from the now bigger hive, perhaps I can simply move the queen cage to the larger hive, and let them get accustomed to her for a few days before I remove the candy, treating it as a queen replacement?
What have I got to lose? If there is a queen in the hive and I missed her, and I put a cage in the hive, when they release her, one of them is going to die anyhow, right? All I have to lose is a queen at this point, or might I lose both of them? Obviously if I lose both, and I see no new brood, I can 'requeen' again, but for now, it seems easier to simply put the cage in there rather than try another split on a new hive, which is hard to do without a lot of comb and bees to move around.
The big question is, when you were looking for your old queen did you pay attention to the frame that had brood to see if there was any visible eggs ?
I wouldn't assume that the queen is gone from the populous hive - she could just be playing hard to find. You could just give the caged queen enough resources to start a new hive.
I started a hive on April 14 with a queen, 2 medium frames of mostly capped brood + the nurse bees that were clinging + 2 frames of stores + about 1/2 drawn frame of new comb to give the queen a place to lay + an extra shake of nurse bees. Already (less than 3 weeks) they have already filled an 8 frame box.
If your other queen is actually OK, then the extra work force will help that hive produce some honey. If that queen is really dead, then they will probably produce even more honey while they are broodless and raise a new queen.
If you had direct released the queen you could have blamed that. :) But in my experience they are more likely to abandon a caged queen than a free one. I think the queens these days are so poorly mated that the bees simply aren't interested. I've only seen this happen much in recent years. (recent as in the last decade or so...)