Nursing a dying colony

[smallswarm]

Let me tell you a story. About this time last year, I lost my queen after a swarm left, and my hive got infested with small hive beetles. Due to not inspecting regularly, it was too late to save the comb. There were about 500 bees clustered on the outside, none inside, and brown filthy honey was leaking out the entrance. When I opened it, maggots were crawling everywhere.

I ordered a queen and moved my remaining workers into a new nuc with fresh foundation. They accepted the queen and drew some nice comb with brood and everything, but they couldn't get up their speed I guess, because the population dwindled down to about a few dozen workers.

At this point, I got a desperate idea and ordered 4 boxes of those apitherapy bees, about 250 workers, and added them to my pathetic population. I was afraid they would kill the queen, but no, they took to her and right away started building more comb, and she started laying again. I was so happy until they absconded. It was my fault though, because I was moving their frame too often. It's a fine line between inspecting too often and not often enough sometimes.

Eventually, my neighbor discovered them in the wall of a vacated house. He used to keep bees, so he tried to trap them. He used fiberglass for his funnel, and the bees chewed through it. So he gave up.

Is this interesting or not?

[SgtMaj]

You've got my interest.

[smallswarm]

Good, I'll continue...

I asked my neighbor if I could take his box and try to start a new hive in it. He said, Sure, if you will start one for me off it once it gets going. So I took it home and set it up. Then I went over to see my bee mentor about getting some worker bees. You can't get package bees this late in the year. But you can still find queens, as some beekeepers like to requeen in the fall. Then if you can find a local beekeeper to shake some workers into your box, you're good to go.

Coincedentally, my mentor had just caught a swarm and was willing to sell it to me. Without hesitation I bought it and took it home and set it up. After a few days, I transfered the frames into a nice new cypress hive from Rossman. Then I thought of my neighbor, and ordered a queen for a split. When she arrived, we transfered one frame to his nuc, and he set it up on his property.

Now the funny part, almost tragic though. We kept my neighbor's nuc closed up for a day so that they would forget the old location at my house, because there is only one lot between us. A few hours after we removed the screen, the queen came out. And every time we tried to put her back in the box, she would come back out, and we would find her on the ground. And then the workers would cluster on the outside of the box.

Finally, we checked the queen cage, and behold, there was still a queen in it! So the original queen just happened to be on the frame that we transfered. With odds of five-to-one in our favor, we sure had some bad luck. We did look for her during the split, but not good enough, obviously. She was hiding on that frame we took out.

Now that my original hive that I bought was queenless, we had to decide whether to catch my queen and put her back in the original nuc or give the new queen to my hive. We thought the weaker nuc, with one frame from the split, would have a better chance of surviving with the original queen. And with the Brazilian Pepper bloom on the way, I feel like they will make it.

I hope that wasn't too confusing. It was quite a stressful drama for me.

[SgtMaj]

Did you get her back to the original nuc?

[KONASDAD]

if you catch queen, re-queen. If not, paper combine for one nice big hive. besides, weak hives dont survive winters anyway.

[JP]

Let me tell you a story. About this time last year, I lost my queen after a swarm left, and my hive got infested with small hive beetles. Due to not inspecting regularly, it was too late to save the comb. There were about 500 bees clustered on the outside, none inside, and brown filthy honey was leaking out the entrance. When I opened it, maggots were crawling everywhere.

I ordered a queen and moved my remaining workers into a new nuc with fresh foundation. They accepted the queen and drew some nice comb with brood and everything, but they couldn't get up their speed I guess, because the population dwindled down to about a few dozen workers.

At this point, I got a desperate idea and ordered 4 boxes of those apitherapy bees, about 250 workers, and added them to my pathetic population. I was afraid they would kill the queen, but no, they took to her and right away started building more comb, and she started laying again. I was so happy until they absconded. It was my fault though, because I was moving their frame too often. It's a fine line between inspecting too often and not often enough sometimes.

Eventually, my neighbor discovered them in the wall of a vacated house. He used to keep bees, so he tried to trap them. He used fiberglass for his funnel, and the bees chewed through it. So he gave up.

Is this interesting or not?

Liked your story, how do you know for sure that the bees that absconded on you were the same ones your friend discovered?

How much did you pay for the apitherapy bees? They are trained to sting, they did you a favor by absconding,  :-D.

Here's hoping things go well for you, keep 'em fed and they should do fine.


...JP

[smallswarm]

Did you get her back to the original nuc?

The original nuc ended up getting re-queened. The split hive for my neighbor has the original queen.

Liked your story, how do you know for sure that the bees that absconded on you were the same ones your friend discovered?

How much did you pay for the apitherapy bees? They are trained to sting, they did you a favor by absconding,  :-D.

Thanks. One can't be 100% sure, I know, but it just seems logical since the ones we discovered were so close to my house. And also, I continued to feed them after they absconded, and I remember they were flying back in that very direction after feeding.

I paid something like $40 for the 4 boxes of 60 bees each. Outrageous per bee compared to a package, but I was desperate for some workers.