I started 2 hives this spring and everything was going textbook until now. I have been taking honey 2-3 full/capped frames every 2-3 weeks for the last month or so without issue (total 10 frames taken). However this weekend I decided to do full inspection to find brood boxes of 1 hive with very low population and no eggs and only 1 frame of capped brood. All other frames are empty or pollen/stores. Mostly empty. I am assuming something happen to the queen. Either I mistaken squished it or they swarmed with no replacement? I can get a queen from a local beekeeper tomorrow. Is that the answer???
This late in the year, I would combine it with the other hive and hope to split them in the spring.
Where are you?
He's about 50 miles from me. On average, it takes about 40 lbs. of honey to get a hive through winter here.
Quote from: iddee on August 27, 2015, 09:59:08 PM
This late in the year, I would combine it with the other hive and hope to split them in the spring.
Reasonably local, free advice from an expert. What more could you ask for?
Hal,
I can't argue with Iddee, but first, go into the hive and look for the queen. If FOR SURE she is gone then follow previous advise.
Sometimes queens quit laying this time of year. We don't know what type of queen you have. Some are different, some are weak, some are nuts.
All this is the fun part of beekeeping.
Enjoy your bees!
J
Probably not connected directly with your problem, but you are a newbee asking for advice... When I started, everybody told me not to take honey off of a first year hive. That has proven to bee pretty good advice most of the time. I know there are exceptions, but if you started with a package, you probably ought to leave them all their stores in the first year.
Take losses in the fall. If there is no good laying queen in there now, combine and then split it out in the spring.
Looks to me like whether or not you have a queen in that hive, you have a real problem because you don't have stores to get them through the winter. Take Iddee's advice. Maybe put a queen excluder between boxes so if there is a queen they can't get to each other?
I have left plenty of honey. Still ten frames of capped honey in second super. I have only taken form top. Both honey supers are mediums. I plan to go back into today to confirm no queen.
Quote from: halexaron on August 28, 2015, 05:46:23 PM
I have left plenty of honey. Still ten frames of capped honey in second super. I have only taken form top. Both honey supers are mediums. I plan to go back into today to confirm no queen.
Sorry, I misunderstood your OP. Thought it said other frames were empty. :oops:
Dallas - NP--I wasn't very clear. The brood chambers are virtually empty of eggs/brood/larva. All spring and summer thus far I have had multiple frames of each, with stores in frame 1 and 10. Now almost all middle frames are vacant and population is noticeably reduced.
But I just went through again and notice some drone larvea. Does that mean queen at least three days ago?? My no queen panic began on Sunday's inspection. am screwing this all up???
Quote from: iddee on August 27, 2015, 09:59:08 PM
This late in the year, I would combine it with the other hive and hope to split them in the spring.
This advice is based on queenless... have to be sure of no queen or advice will change :) Queens cut back drastically this time of year but then again things should pick up a little because of current golden rod you should have. Also queens
hide very well. If you have killed her you would most likely, not all times, see attempts at queen cells.
Would you have recognized a swarm? How often did you inspect? Did you ever see queen cells?
I saw queen cells in ~may-june with larvae and royal jelly in them. I was preparing to do a split, (needed to build a few boxes and frames) but when I went back a few days later to perform the split they had torn them all down and I did not see that behavior again. I marked the frames with the cells so I am sure they deconstructed them... And I saw marked queen in July. I inspect on some level almost every week. Usually when i see eggs or young larvae i stop and close them up.
other than visually seeing queen and the roar (which I don't trust myself to recognize) is there any other way to confirm queen. Maybe its just the slowdown season.
The slowdown season here does NOT mean total stoppage. If you have a VIABLE queen, you will have eggs and small larva. Maybe not a lot, but there will be some. If you have none, you are either queenless, or have a queen that will never lay again. If you have doubts about being queenless, combine with another hive and cage the queen for a week. Her stronger pheremones should cause the bees to remove the non-viable queen.
if the fix is to combine hives is it ok to let it go another week in order to be certain of queenlessness?
You can wait until laying workers start laying eggs. It becomes much harder after that.
You keep saying "almost" no eggs or larva. What does that mean? If you have a dozen eggs, one to the cell, centered in the bottom of each cell, you have a queen.
First, you report seeing drone larvae now? This could be a laying worker or a drone laying queen. Are you seeing multiple eggs in cells? If so, it is laying workers.
Second, did I understand that you saw queen cells in may or Jun, but they were cut down later? In July you saw your marked queen?? Were these cells fully formed? Did they have eggs/larvae in them? Or were they simply insurance queen cups?
If they started to raise a new queen or swarm, I wonder why they stopped in June or July?????
Bees always seem to make me have more questions all the time.
(I'm repeating some of what chux said - mainly because I didn't want to go back and edit)(lazy me)
Are you pretty versed at spotting queens and/or eggs? I use jeweler's visors to find eggs a lot of time. My concern would be two fold, it could be a new queen hasn't started laying yet and if they are queen less then laying workers may set in. You saw drone brood? Was it organized? say maybe on the bottom or was it spotty? Laying workers can only make drones, sometimes new queens will miss fire and lay messy before getting things right. That includes laying drones.
Laying workers will typically not center a single egg in the cell. I've also had freshly mated queens who took a few tries to get it right.