Hello,
I'm going through my second winter as a beekeeper with 14 hives. I have sugar cakes and quilt boxes on top of all of them. Yesterday it was a little warmer, around 40 deg and I thought I would just take a look inside to see if anyone was eating the sugar cakes. All looked good - no one up to the top yet, I didn't expect them to be I just wanted to check. The very last hive I looked at was odd. They where very active and noisy - I'm not sure if it was a queenless roar or what. This morning I went down to take a look and all was quiet....then I took the tie down strap off and banged the top a little on the hive and they were noisy again. None of the other hives did this yesterday...but I was trying not to disturb them. Does that sound like something may have happened to the queen?
Thank you for any input!
Merry Christmas!
Very difficult to fix things in the winter without making matters worse so I leave them alone.
I am a dummy with no experiance but did ask this same question on a differrent site. It might be queenlessness but I read also that when the bees are uncapping stores that they are also more noisy. They could have just been eating or moving stores. I know I can't do anything now anyway but am also just trying too learn what I see and hear might mean.
Good luck
gww
Quote from: Acebird on December 24, 2016, 12:59:57 PM
Very difficult to fix things in the winter without making matters worse so I leave them alone.
+1
This time of year nothing can be fixed. Relax, don't worry, have a toddy while reading your Bee Journal and enjoy your Christmas. Chances are, they are fine and will be there to greet you in spring.
BTW, Old beekeeper tradition is that it's bad luck to bother your bees at Christmas time.
I don't bother my bees at Christmas time but I plan on extracting either Christmas day or the day after. Honey is in the warming stage and all the equipment was cleaned today.
As mentioned, not much you can do to fix or find out what is going on. Did you remove the queen excluder in the fall? If so I would not worry about the queen. She is usually the last one to survive in the hive if the hive is not being distributed (inspected). I have seen bees go down to a few bees and the queen was still alive.
Jim
Yeah, I think you're right gww - I think they're just eating too. I took off the mouse guard and pulled all the dead bees out and didn't find a dead queen....so I'll assume she's still there. If I did find her dead I would do a newspaper combine tomorrow (when it's 50 deg) with another hive. Guess I just thought it was odd that they were so noisy and all the other hive were quiet.
I'm not superstitious Hops : )
I don't use queen excluders sawdstmakr.
Thanks guys!