Ok. I have been encouraged to ask questions, so, here goes.
I have had my hives in my possession for almost a week. When I brought them home both seemed fine.
I have come home each afternoon and watched the bees. One hive seems to be working overtime. The other, not so much.
Today I came home early to pull the lids and inspect the hives. It was overcast today, and in spite of warnings to the contrary, I pulled them. Both hives consist of two medium boxes. The west box seems to be occupying the top box, the east hive not so much, I can see a lot of the bottom box through the top.
Should I worry?
How many bees are in the other box? You inspected.. there were eggs, larvae, capped brood... Queen? Pollen? Honey? hehe.. sorry need to know information.
How many frames is the light box covering? Your in Florida.. temps still good, flow going on?
In this area the flows are done and were packing it in for the winter. Lite hives are being combined etc Not sure your weather and the time you have left.
The sky was very dark and rain was coming, I did not remove any frames or open the brood box. I may be able to go further into the box Sunday.
Smoak,
When you are in the hive, give me a call and let me know what it looks like. Remember, we were going to go into the hive here and add frames of honey if it needed it. That did not work out but I still have plenty of frames we can add to it if needed.
Jim
I would worry about the hive with not much activity. Sounds like its weak. I would inspect the hive and look for whats going on. Check for a laying queen, brood, eggs ect. Look for signs of SHB. If there is some capped drone brood break them open and look for mites or any other pests or problems that may be present. Let us know what you find. We can then help with some advise on the direction to go. It may be a good idea if sawdust is close to help you go through the hive when you open it up.
you may also have had drift from one hive to the other. you may, if all else is well, consider swapping the positions of the two boxes.
Quote from: kathyp on November 02, 2013, 12:46:21 PM
you may also have had drift from one hive to the other. you may, if all else is well, consider swapping the positions of the two boxes.
My brother and I have had to swap the positions of our strongest (3 deeps--planning to start narrowing it down) hive with our weakest (2 mediums) hive.. It was a great success and now both hives are doing well. Now it's the 3rd hive on that property that we probably need to really check out. I'm mixing sugar water for all the hives (5) now.. Hopefully won't have to feed them NEXT winter. Hah!
Firstly, never panic. From what I saw looking at your weather report, you have plenty of time to make things right. If Jim is that close and is helping you out every thing is gonna work out.
smoakingun,
Were you able to get into the hive on Sunday? Any updates?
I was unable to get in on sunday, but, in spite of my better teaching, I opened it up yesterday evening just before sundown. It seems that all my bees were at home and less than happy that I stopped in for a visit.
I think maybe I am just overly concerned.
I found 4 frames of mostly capped honey in the top box and what looked to be polen and brood in the botton with more bees than I expected in both boxes. I am actually quite relieved. Call it new beekeeper jitters. I did also find and squish 2 SHB whilst there.
The stronger hive seem to be world champion workers. I did not pull the screen top on that one, but I can see very little of the brood box from the top on that one for all the honey and bees.
I'm glad to here they look good. I have the same situation with above here. All of the other hives are flying in large numbers except one hive.
I'm wondering if they have different genetics causing the different behavior.
Jim
that would be an interesting study. The slow hive is the one in the hive I brought you. Are the 2 queens related?
I'm not sure. That is the queen that swarmed from my observation hive. That hive was so strong that after it swarmed, with enough bees to fill a 8 frames in a medium hive, that you could hardly tell that it had swarmed. There was a ball of bees at the entrance of the OB hive that grew to size of about 2 softballs before they swarmed. She filled the new hive up real quick. Her mother came from one of the my hives the year before.
Not sure which one it was. The observation hive does not act the same as these 2 hives.
Jim
Got home early enough today to just watch the hives for a bit. The world champion hive seemed to be hunkered down for the night. (no surprise, it was 30min before sunset and the temp is beginning to drop) Much to my surprise, however, my seemingly slower hive still had a pretty steady stream of bees coming in. A very quick peek under the lids revealed a hive that seems to be catching up with the world champs in number of bees and seem to be making honey. I am beginning to wonder if I will have to add supers.