Dumb Mistake

Hi-Tech · July 19, 2006, 05:13:21 PM

I have to tell on myself. I have a hive that I started with a small swarm a few weeks ago. I had them in a medium super but it was still too much space and the SHB were invading. I decided to move them to a 5 frame medium nuc I had made to give them a smaller area to defend.

After transferring the frames to the nuc, I gathered up the old medium hive body, bottom board and top cover and loaded them on my 4 wheeler. Once I got back to the house and was unloading, I saw a few bees still on the bottom board. Somehow I had missed those when I bumped the bottom board on the ground in front of the nuc. As I looked closer, I saw one of them was the Queen!

CRAP! As I tried to catch her, she flew. I watched her fly hoping she would land back on me but she didn't. She made about 5 or 6 loops and then she flew out of site! CRAP!!!!!!

Now I have a small, queenless hive I will probably just merge into another hive. I guess I learned to take a better look around before leaving the scene!

bassman1977 · July 19, 2006, 08:01:02 PM

Well, if there were eggs in that nuc, they will make a new queen. Word of advice though...it's ok to check in a few days to see if you see some queen cells. If you do, leave them alone for a good while after that, especially after the queen emerges.

I followed up on some info Mr. Bray gave me yesterday regarding my split, where I couldn't find the queen. I talked to Mr. Draper at Draper's Super Bee and he said even the most experienced beekeeper will have a hard time finding a virgin queen. He continued, that she is afraid for her life for the first few weeks while she is out doing the mating flights (which in fact do last up to 2 weeks) and any change in the hive could be bad for her. He said it is best to leave the hive alone and that you could tell the queen is present if you see activity in and out of the hive and also see the guards coming out to greet the incoming bees.

Granted allowing them to make their own queen takes a good while, but it's cheaper. You can also replace her with a bought queen to speed things up or combine the nuc to another hive.

This is probably a lot of stuff in here you might already know, but had I known about some of this two weeks ago, I'd have two successful splits and not just one.

tom · July 19, 2006, 08:08:39 PM

Howdy

I know the feeling of making mistakes i have done alot of them since i started back beekeeping. But i have learned thru trail and error we all do but i would like to know if your nuc has any uncapped brood if they do then let them make thier own queen. She may turn out to be better and at least you will have a young queen going into the winter and spring but you did learn thats the main thing.

Tom

mark · July 19, 2006, 09:35:56 PM

exercise some patience and don't do nothing yet! if she flew from that hive for a mating flight or the scent is strong enough you may get lucky and find her return there.

Brian D. Bray · July 20, 2006, 12:51:07 AM

Right on Mark. Never panic--an emergency supercedure is better than no queen at all and even a single nuc can winter over successfully if there are enough stores for the quantity of bees.

Hi-Tech · July 20, 2006, 10:39:08 AM

We usually feed through what little winter we have here so that should not be a problem.

Brian D. Bray · July 20, 2006, 03:53:07 PM

It must be nice to have such mild winters. Is that why it gets so hot and humid in the Summer? Oh, and the drought.
Where I live a drought is considered to be 30 days without rain. And a mild winter is one with less than a foot of snow all season.

Hi-Tech · July 23, 2006, 12:37:03 AM

A cold winter here is when the dog's water bowl freezes once but a mild summer is when you can only fry an egg on your car hood and not deep fry a turkey. This summer has been hot.....

Brian D. Bray · July 23, 2006, 07:15:21 AM

So, from your comments I assume your turkey turned into charcoal?

TwT · July 23, 2006, 09:26:36 AM

this year it could happen but he would have to put a timer on it if not charcoal.... ;)