adding open brood from strong hive to a laying worker hive

[Seanjakl]

I am a new keeper this year and working with two new top bar hives. After installing bees on April 18, one hive is doing great and the other is not.  The queen has failed and I am only getting drone cells. My plan is to insert three bars of open brood, one bar per week over three weeks and add two healthy queen cells.  My QUESTION: Seven days ago I inserted a bar containing open brood, capped brood, capped and uncapped honey, empty cells and pollen filled cells. After about 5 days I noticed that the open brood in the first bar have all died and turned black. I don't know how the the sealed brood is doing. Is it normal for the open brood to die when inserted into a new hive?  Am I doing something wrong? Do I have an additional problem?  I am due to insert a second bar of open brood today. Can anyone help me? Thanks.

[Gary and Margaret - kiwimana]

If you have a laying worker then I don't think the bees will make a new Queen Cell.  You need to get rid of that laying worker before the nurse bees will start making Queen cells.

Sorry not sure why the bees are not looking after the new brood, I have never seen that.  Does the colony have have enough bees?

Thanks...Gary

[Seanjakl]

Thanks Gary. I am buying two cells from another local keeper. the colony is pretty light on bees, but I dont know how to judge if it is enough or not.

[Gary and Margaret - kiwimana]

Probably the best way is to look at the frames when you open the hive.

How many frames are covered in bees, this is harder to judge with a Top Bar Hive.  Hopefully some Top Bar people will know?

If the hive has an observation window, that is another way to judge the number of bees.

Cheers...Gary

[OldMech]

   Your doing the right thing by trying to supress the laying workers with the brood, the second or third frame added should produce queen cells.. SHOULD... nothing is guaranteed with laying workers..
   I would have to make a guess that the open brood was chilled, either before inserting it into the hive or after..    Place the frame of brood into the brood area of the hive where most of the bees are rather than on one end or the other..   that should get them to tending the brood post haste...   If thats what you did I cant offer more suggestions without understanding more of the details...    Hope you have better success with the next frame!!!!

[Seanjakl]

after considering the question of enough or not-enough bees... and talking with an experienced top bar keeper, I realized the colony has become too small to care for the open brood. I think my best option is to merge the two hives. I'll put the remaining bees and comb from the weak colony into the strong hive. I'm going to research my options a little more but I think I will smoke both hives and smoke each frame before putting it in the strong hive. Hopefully they will be disoriented enough to merge without a lot of fighting. Let me know if you have any other suggestions. Thanks