Hey all, I'd appreciate some advice!
We had a busy hive that was going great guns, and decided to split it - we removed the queen into a nuc. The split is doing well.
The parent hive we have left alone - today is the first time we looked in to it since removing the old queen. It has been by far the busiest hive out of all three in our home yard - bees have been coming and going like crazy and the two honey supers are almost filled up in a few weeks. Today is the first time we looked in the brood box - nothing. Every single brood frame is being filled with honey. The hive is bursting at the seams with bees, but no brood or eggs or larvae in sight.
So there are 10 frames in the brood box of honey being stored, and 10 more or less capped frames in one super, and 10 half capped frames in the other super.
We removed a frame from the brood area and replaced it with a frame of eggs from one of our really good queens... we are hoping they will raise a queen from one of her eggs?
Will this work? If it does work, do we need to give them 10 fresh frames in the brood area? How will she lay if they are packing honey into all the brood frames?
My thought was to move all the honey frames out of the brood into the super, replace them with foundation, and harvest the 10 capped frames.. is this a sound idea?
Panicking a little bit so apologies for the all-over-the-place post!
Phil,
We need dates. When did you remove the queen?
Did you see queen cells, are there drones in your hives?
There is a good chance that you have a new queen in the hive.
She just needs time to develops and mate.
Sounds like you definantly need to add a super.
The one frame that you added is good insurance. If it is queen less the bees can make a queen from it, and it also adds open brood pheromones to spot laying workers.
Now I would give them 10 days before inspecting them. By then you will either have eggs or capped queen cells.
If you have queen cells, be very gentle and keep the frames up right so that you do not injur the youngest ones.
Jim
You done good so far like Jim said. Another tip; Next time you have this situation look in the middle of your frames for a patch of cells that have shinny or clean looking bottoms. If you see this then most likely she's there but just hasn't started laying yet.
I am surprised you are not seeing queen cells. If you are given lemons make lemonade. I would put an empty box of foundation under the hive and another one on top of the hive. Take full advantage of the flow. You may want to pull up a couple of frames from the top box to encourage them to use the one you put on. In a week if they haven't made queen cells out of the egg frame that you added they must think they have a queen. Get as much honey and wax as you can in the event you have to trash the bees. If you must have another hive split another one. Maybe you will have too many. :tongue:
Foolishly didn't write down the exact date that we did the split, but it was about 3 weeks ago, plus a few days. I was going to check back a week after the split to check for queen cells, but didn't get the chance due to work and other commitments getting in the way. i would have thought by now there'd be evidence of a laying queen.
My biggest concern is that the brood box appears honeybound.. even if there is a new queen she will have nowhere to lay, right?
Quote from: PhilK on September 25, 2016, 07:17:42 PM
My biggest concern is that the brood box appears honeybound.. even if there is a new queen she will have nowhere to lay, right?
Because if you let a split make a new queen the rest of the colony has nothing to do but go get honey. Stay a head of that honey flow and in my opinion stay the heck out of the brood chamber for 40 days. In a heavy flow the nectar comes in fast and they need space to dry it down. There should be no worries of SHB and wax moths in early spring. If the mated queen comes back to a chuck full hive they will make queen cells at the bottom of the frames and your honey and bees will be gone.
For sure you will not have brood three weeks after a split unless there were cells to begin with.
You do realize in some cases this whole process could take six weeks. Do you even know if you had your drone bees that were of the age to mate ?
This may help you next time you ttry to raiser Queen. One thing to remember drones are not ready to mate for about the first five to seven days of their life
http://www.thebeeyard.org/queen-rearing-calendar/
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :smile:
Jim, I am going to guess that if he has a lot of nectar rolling in there are drones present.
Quote from: Acebird on September 26, 2016, 12:24:09 PM
Jim, I am going to guess that if he has a lot of nectar rolling in there are drones present.
I personally do not like guessing. I do have a good friend who lives down in the Land of Oz. He tells me there are some times a year. When bees can get all kinds of nectar and not get pollen at all. In some areas this will kill bee hives.
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :smile:
Plenty of drones around in all hives, and successfully raised and had a queen mate and start laying (different hive) about 2 weeks before making this split.
Sorry for my dimwittedness, but what is the idea now then? I have introduced a frame of eggs into a brood box that is being filled with honey... if they make a queen, she hatches, mates, and returns to this hive won't they swarm straight away as they have no space?
QuoteIf the mated queen comes back to a chuck full hive they will make queen cells at the bottom of the frames and your honey and bees will be gone
This is exactly what I don't want to happen..
What is my recourse here?
Quote from: PhilK on September 27, 2016, 11:43:26 PM
[...] what is the idea now then? I have introduced a frame of eggs into a brood box that is being filled with honey... if they make a queen, she hatches, mates, and returns to this hive won't they swarm straight away as they have no space? What is my recourse here?
Phil - I understand your frustration. I've been watching this thread and haven't commented thus far, as honey flows such as this are completely out of my experience. What I'm about to suggest is simply what I imagine I'd do if finding myself in your situation, and so if anyone with actual experience of such events wants to contradict these suggestions - that would be highly desirable.
As I see it, you need to take pressure off the brood nest area. I'd do this in two ways: firstly, by removing the amount of forager traffic. I don't know how many colonies you have, but if there's one with little forager activity (can be difficult to judge, I know), then swap-over your problem hive with that one. If they're all highly active, then consider moving your problem hive well away into a new location (i.e. far enough away so that the foragers won't return to it), and if necessary, adjust the other hive positions so that the 'lost foragers' will be easily able to find themselves a new home. I say this on the assumption that the loss of your 'problem colony' would be more important to you than a reduction in honey crop from it. If there ARE any swarm cells present, make the move before a virgin emerges. You'd be very unlucky indeed if there happened to be a virgin present and awaiting her nuptial flight, the success of which a move would of course sabotage.
Ok - secondly, I'd do exactly what Jim suggested in the first reply - add an empty super to that hive (with pre-drawn combs if possible) - and, on the assumption that bees would much rather store honey above the brood nest than in it, I would expect them to move the existing nectar upwards and thus clear the brood nest area for laying.
Then - it's just a waiting game. By (hopefully) clearing the brood area, you will have done the best you can, and from then on it's down to the bees. Denying that colony significant input from the field-foragers, AND by giving them empty space in which to store whatever honey has already been collected, will hopefully be enough to convince them that life isn't quite as rosy as it was yesterday, and so any thought of swarming right now probably isn't such a smart idea ...
Putting in the frame of eggs/larvae was a good insurance move - hopefully it won't be needed.
There is one other thought I've had, and that is to create an additional entrance directly to the supers during such a major flow - this could easily be done by offsetting a super, or the crown board (inner cover) from the box below it by just enough to create a gap of say, 8mm, to give the foragers direct access into that super. Easy enough to then seal that access by replacing the boxes properly when the flow subsides.
Hopefully there's an idea or two in the above of some use.
LJ
Quote from: PhilK on September 27, 2016, 11:43:26 PM
This is exactly what I don't want to happen..
What is my recourse here?
As I said before, put a box at the bottom and a box at the top. I don't believe it will matter if it is foundation or comb because bees draw comb in a flow when they need it. What matters is if the colony has already made a decision to swarm and backfilling usually means it has happened. There are all the swarm prevention or deterrents that you can try but they all require a lot of work when the honey is coming in hot and heavy. I won't bother with all those methods because they aren't that effective anyway. I would just grab all the honey I can from this hive. Keep the frames coming and pull all the capped honey you can.
The frame of eggs you added to this hive should tell you if the hive is queenless or not by looking for queen cells in a few days. Splitting the hive is always an option to offset the loss of a swarm if it should happen.
Thanks guys. I will add a super, and check for queen cells at the same time. I'll also take off the capped honey. The flow is crazy I can barely keep up with how fast they're all growing
OK so went in to the hive two days ago. Top super fully capped so put a clearer board on. Next super down about half capped. Went into brood box and found no QCs, but they had raised the larvae from the donor egg frame... kept looking through the other frames and they had moved the honey out, and when I looked closely saw eggs in most cells on a couple of frames!
Put the hive back together with a big grin on my face, and placed an empty super above the brood box for them to start working on.
So what happened? Did I miss a virgin queen last time, and now she is laying?
Sounds to me as if your virgin got mated ok first time around ... but when she came to start laying, there was nowhere to lay her eggs, 'cause the brood cells had been hi-jacked to store nectar in.
Then, as soon as you gave them some space above the brood nest to store nectar (where they have a definite preference to store it), then they duly cleared out the brood nest and in so doing gave your new queen somewhere in which to lay. Problem solved.
LJ