I bought 4 packages this year. Three from one place and one from another place. Three in late March and one in May.
Right off the bat one of the queens started shooting blanks after doing a couple of frames of workers. The folks replaced her with no static. I went in the other two hives today and they were queen less. I found one swarm cell in one.
It seems I remember reading on here that package queens pretty much were a short fuse. They worked good for a short while and that was it. Superseded or just disappeared.
Last year I got a package around the first week in June. By March the queen was gone. This year one out of the first three had a bad queen, now about two months later the other two queens are gone. I guess I need to keep an eye on the other package I got. I'll probably go ahead and add a frame of eggs to them. If nothing else that'll give them another chance to make a queen and hopefully keep them from having laying workers.
I have mixed emotions about this. Part of me wants them to send me two more queens, the other part says the heck with package queens, bring on the mutt genes.
Has anyone else had this same problem?
Talking out my butt here since I've never bought a package but from what I read your experience might be better than most.
G,
Not sure what is going on this year. I have all mutts and I am having serious problems with queens. I also have a high rate of absconding, often into another one of my hives. My actual number of honey producing hives is down to 5 hives. You are not alone. I have talked to several friends in our club that are experiencing the same thing. I have one hive with a marked queen and no eggs and no brood and a flow is on. Watched my observation hive abscond and move into a swarm trap that had another queen in it that had also absconded to that swarm trap after it had reduced to a very small number of bees. I have not opened it yet but it will be interesting to see which queen took over that hive. The original queen was marked before she moved into the swarm trap, the OH queen was not.
Jim
I started beekeeping again last year after a 30 years of not keeping bees. I got a package and it took all summer for them to get going. She was laying a lot of drones. I got a local swarm in July and that built up quickly. The swarm is doing great this year. The package is not doing much at all. I am in the process of replacing the package queen now. So I am not impressed with the queen quality of the package bees.
Gary,
I just picked up 6 packages from Wilbanks. I'm gonna get them installed today. They will be sitting in my back yard so I can watch them close and bring them up to speed.
I don't know what you have going on. Sure sounds like defective queens. This is my second experience with packages. I've only bought one other and they were from Wolf Creek. They were very successful. Hopefully these will be no different. My only other experience with Wilbanks was with queens. I was very satisfied with their quality and performance. That is why I went with their packages.
If you have the resources, I would do as you said and add a frame of eggs to your queenless hives and see what they do. Depending on colony strength, I would suggest that you consider combining colonies. Also, queens should be readily available so purchasing queens could be an option.
Good luck to you.
Ray
I get a couple packages from Wolfcreek every year because I can get them in late March and they build up good and draw comb good. I use them to start nucs and they are boiling over with bees and I have already taken a nuc off of them. I am getting VSH queens to make up more nucs off of them. The queens are three weeks late getting here. They will sometimes supercede the queen and I have to watch to make sure the queen gets back cause sometime they don't and if they don't I give them a laying queen to keep em from getting weak. I have caught two swarms this year that tried to supercede the queen and she didn't make it back so I gave them a laying queen. I like having a laying queen in the hive during the flow. They build good and draw comb good during a flow if the queen is in there.
And I know that a laying queen cost a few bucks but to me the extra brood and bees and the comb that gets drawn is worth the money spent on a queen.
You guys buying packages that all ready have bees need to watch this:
Michael Palmer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nznzpiWEI8A)
Quote from: marktrl on June 08, 2014, 01:51:10 PM
You guys buying packages that all ready have bees need to watch this:
Michael Palmer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nznzpiWEI8A)
Okay, I did. He's right. The best bees are the ones you raise yourself. But, you have to start somewhere.
Ray, I agree. We were told at our meeting the other night that the brains with the PHDs say you shouldn't raise your own bees. They're inferior to the bees you buy.
That's what I call BC, Bee Crap. What I have read about these bred bees and what I have experienced suggest otherwise. I have one swarm queen, and three queens from a split - They're doing fine. Three of the Four package queens - They're gone. If I go back to a year ago it's four out of five queens are gone.
I too had a package superscede this year. I only bought one and like you, the original queen was laying like mad, I hived them on drawn comb from a deadout from the winter. She had 2 frames full of capped brood the first time I looked. I turned my attention to my other hive and when I looked back, it seemed they were slowing, sure enough, a hatched queen cell. I had not had any luck in the past with virgins but low and behold she made it back. Now, shes laying like gangbusters and the hive is booming. Getting ready to make a split off of them. So, dont give up hope, I was just about to buy a queen when she showed. Good Luck. G :chop:
Quote from: biggraham610 on June 09, 2014, 06:19:59 AM
.....sure enough, a hatched queen cell. I had not had any luck in the past with virgins but low and behold she made it back. Now, shes laying like gangbusters and the hive is booming.
That "returning" thing is the issue. Especially when one has a family of swallows that tend to fly over the hives a couple time of day. :-\ I love the swallows , but......
I always wondered WHY the "experts" were so adamant about "buying" bees. Especially the queens. After I started learning more about bees that question is even more suspect. It isn't like queen breeders have a huge netted area where the queens will only mate with certain drones thus their daughter queens be a certain "breeding". The only criteria for choosing is on the dams performance in the mother hive. The male half of the equation is a crap shoot.
That said, one has to start someplace. I got lucky. I was able to capture 2 swarms as my start. They survived the winter and are thriving thus far, teaching me many beekeeping lessons along the way. :-D Not the least of which is keeping bees is like herding cats. They do what they are going to do despite my efforts.
Now waiting to see if the emergency split has an actual queen. The cells were opened, but too soon for eggs even if she makes it back. Just eying those swallows flitting about.
It seems to me that a good many of the experts who recommend you buy queens are also in the business of selling queens.
Quote from: Wolfer on June 09, 2014, 01:40:05 PM
It seems to me that a good many of the experts who recommend you buy queens are also in the business of selling queens.
...or funded by the queen breeders.
Quote from: Wolfer on June 09, 2014, 01:40:05 PM
It seems to me that a good many of the experts who recommend you buy queens are also in the business of selling queens.
This.
Do the math. What is a frame of bees and brood worth? What is two or three frames of brood with a laying queen worth?
What is a queenless hive worth? What is a queenless hive with no brood and has gotten weak because the virgin queen got caught by a swallow worth? What is a laying worker hive worth? What is a weak hive with SHB slime on the comb worth?
A strong hive can do a good job raising themselves a queen but if it doesn't work the first time and you put a frame of brood in the hive by the time you have brood emerging they will be good targets for waxmoths and SHB.
Some one mentioned Mr. Palmer he raises his queens using overly populated hives with young bees.
not two month old bees that have been queenless for a month.
I have had similar experiences in the past with packages, and have blatantly put them down. This year I have a connection, so decided to give package bees a try. I received ten packages from Georgia and hived them..
I made note that three of the ten queens looked small, and noted the hives they were put in. Within four days of the queens laying, those three began the process of superseding. I let them have at it, despite the fact that those three queens seemed to be laying well.. I can only assume they were not mated well and or had a lack of pheromone. All three were replaced, the new queens mated and are laying up a storm. I fully expected to lose half of the ten packages, just from past experience. To date, they are growing in leaps and bounds. Their next test will be wintering. Will they keep growing and be prepared for winter? Will they survive the winter?
I don't know that answer yet, but having lost zero of the ten packages was enough to impress me. I cannot even begin to imagine trying to raise thousands of queens. If you are honest with yourself, you KNOW every single one of those thousands of queens will not be a perfect queen. In my case there were three that were off, but their daughter queens are big plump and have become laying machines. While there seems to be little or no resistant traits, they have so far made fantastic queens to build the hives through their first year. Next spring, IF they survive the winter, they can be replaced with resistant queens. Those new queens going into good strong hives.
I have not ordered packages from a lot of different places. The bees I ordered from the other two southern places in the past starved in their first winter, despite having resources within reach, we will see how these bees do in comparison to the hives of local bees I have. I will report back then.. As of this moment, those packages are doing exactly what they should be doing, all ten of them. Luck? Producer? Maybe it was MY mad skill? :-D
Well the package bees queen may not be totally to blame. In the last week I have found two more dead queens in front of the parent hives of two different splits. By my clock next week I'll need to go in and check things out on a couple of hives. I may spring for some new queens if all else has failed.
Good Luck, Keep us posted. G
Well, fount a'nuther one.
She was alive and kicking, just couldn't fly. I saw a small marble size ball of bees under and to the left of one of my hives. I scooped her up and put her in the entrance amonst the bearding bees. As she heads into the hive they start to ball her. I'm like - you idiot! How do you know she came from that hive?
Is it obvious I'm lacking experience? ;) As I came into the house it dawned on me that she was about in the same place as the last dead queen I found. Maybe V queens? I pulled the queen from this hive about long enough ago for them to make a new queen.
gary, i'm hoping you bought some queens. sterling is the voice of reason on this thread.
the hives get weaker and weaker waiting on a new queen then you start setting strong hives back by trying to bump the weak ones up. i like to raise my own queens but sometimes you just start throwing good money at bad in these situations. i vowed to never steal from strong hives to prop up weak ones again a couple of years ago.
michael palmer is raising queens in queen mating yards with hives that have been manipulated specifically for raising queens. those are very different circumstances than what you have right now.
Thanks Rob. Yeah I have some on the way. The funny thing is a couple of those hives I was talking about actually has queens in them now. Maybe the others were v queens that got starved out?
most likely those were the queens that lost the battle. who did you order queens from? i'm debating on whether i want to buy some for splits or raise my own. i'm so far behind on everything right now buying seems like the easy way out.
Hey Gary! I got tired of spending $100 a pop on packages that I wound up loosing. I personally am having better luck with feral bees. Just my two cents.
try to find local sources for nucs. if you can put in some orders now for over-wintered nucs for next spring. with a nuc you know the queen has been accepted. you already have 2-3 frames of brood & 5 drawn out frames so you're way ahead of the game compared to pkgs.