when do you give up and combine?

fermentedhiker · August 05, 2010, 12:13:27 PM

Out of 10 Italian packages installed on the first week in June I've got three that just seem stalled. The expansion of the 10 hives is all over the map. One is starting it's fourth(all are on 8 frame mediums) a couple are on their 3rd and a couple should be ready for their third within a week or two. I gave the three that seemed to be struggling each a frame with a queen cell from my overwintered hives(Caucasian and Russian) in case the package queens were duds to try and fast track the requeening process. I did a thorough inspection this past weekend. All three still haven't touched a single frame in the second box. I found the queen in each of them(monstrous golden ones) and all three seem to be lacking in stores, but have plenty of brood going. What concerns me is that they are the equivalent size of a five frame deep NUC and the Fall flow is underway here. I've been debating combining the weakest of the two in hopes that they could get built up in time for winter, just not sure if this is the right time to give up on them or not.

So I guess i'm looking for opinions of what other people use to judge whether to combine or not and how much time before winter does it need to be done in order for there to be enough time for it to actually do some good.

Thanks
Adam

Kathyp · August 05, 2010, 12:28:56 PM

Quoteand all three seem to be lacking in stores

you might consider moving those three away from the others and feeding. is there any chance that they have been robbed by the others? are the queens the ones that came with the nuc or are they new from your cells?

my experience (limited) in combining two under preforming hives is that you end up with one under preforming hive. rather than do that, combine each weak nuc with your stronger hives to save the bees and try split again in the spring. kill the queens in the under preforming hives.

my opinion only! see what others say.

charmd2 · August 05, 2010, 03:32:43 PM

Do you want some nucs?? I'd read up on overwintering nucs and give it a go that way. although, that's just my opinion. They could just have been weak to start with and were being robbed by the productive hives.

AliciaH · August 05, 2010, 03:50:18 PM

For what it's worth, I had a split last year that didn't do anything all year. They wintered okay and to my pleasant surprise, absolutely exploded on me as a 2nd year hive.

You didn't mention if you were still feeding them? If not, I would to see if they will store it. If so, then you have the option of trying to winter them in nucs. If you are, then maybe a differenct type of feeder? Some bees respond better to different type.

If you don't want to risk it and decide to combine, then I agree with KathyP that you should combine each with another stronger hive and eliminate the weaker queens.

Good luck!

fermentedhiker · August 05, 2010, 07:17:23 PM

Thanks for the replies.

I stopped feeding them once they had the first 8 frame medium box drawn out.

Doesn't seem to be any robbing going on, definitely no all out war style robbing. All of my hives have been a little slow making honey the past month.

I had some concerns about that Kathy, just making a larger troubled hive that is.

I don't know if the queens are the originals or from the queen cells. I would have expected the queens to be darker being from Caucasian and Russian stock, but with open mated queens it's hard to judge anything from color alone and I'm right around the point where the capped brood would be from a newly hatched queen. All three had lots of brood(at least relative to the volume they are occupying) by which I mean they have brood on at least 6 out of the eight frames. If they are new queens I won't know how they are doing until I watch them develop for the rest of the month. At which point they probably wouldn't help another hive getting ready for winter.

While I should have good flying weather for another two months but the golden rod/purple loosestrife/jewel weed are all blooming early and so the fall flow may also end early this year in spite of lingering good weather.

Yes I have considered overwintering NUCs. I've been reading up quite a bit on Michael Palmers(in VT) methods of doing just that. It's one of the reasons I went with eight frame mediums(same volume as a 5 frame NUC) which allows all my equipment to match. But these hives "should" be building up at least a little better than they have, which makes me concerned about their viability.

20-20 vision in hindsight right :)

AliciaH · August 05, 2010, 08:00:37 PM

Didn't know if I should share this, but I'll throw it out anyway. Your original question was, "when do you give up and combine?" Well.....I purchased new nucs in April and put them all in 10-frame deeps. They all had four built-out frames and I added new foundation for the other six. I proceded to feed everyone with top feeders.

One queen would only lay on three of her original frames. Her fourth frame was completely built out, but she would not lay eggs there. The workers would not build new wax at all. I added another built out frame thinking that maybe there was something wrong with the one they didn't like, but nothing, nada. I've fed this hive the entire time. They've taken little syrup, made no new wax, have had no increase in population, and as of two weeks ago, have stored absolutely nothing.

I say that when you have tried everything you can think of and they show no self-preservation....that's when you throw in the towel.

I hope I don't sound to harsh here, I really do love my girls. But with no stores, I just couldn't see how to get them through the winter even if I did re-nuc them.

fermentedhiker · August 05, 2010, 08:26:15 PM

Not harsh at all. If I had a NUC started in April that failed to expand at all by August I would consider them a lost cause myself.

I actually made a split this week to give a queen a home(a fellow beekeeper ordered one to requeen a failing hive, that unfortunately did fail before it arrived). I used frames from six different hives to start a new one for the queen. Now I'm second guessing that I should've pinched the queens from the slow packages and combined them under the new queen. Oh well time will tell right :)

iddee · August 05, 2010, 10:03:08 PM

I would combine 30 days before expected first frost. I don't know when that would be for your area.

fermentedhiker · August 05, 2010, 10:25:11 PM

Thanks Iddee that good info. The way the weather has been the last couple of years I'm not sure when it is for my area anymore either :) Normally would be early October, but spring came a whole month early this year and my fall flow is coming ahead of schedule as well. Not sure what will be left blooming by the end of August at this rate.