Strange Occurrance

Kris^ · July 11, 2005, 10:45:20 PM

This evening I was watching the hives and noticed that hive 1, which has been my second strongest hive, was not bearding as heavily as it normally does. In fact, it had fewer bees out front than two of my other hives. Is it possible the hive may have swarmed sometime during the day? Liz was at the farm all day, and said she hadn't seen anything unusual, and the hives all sent out a slew of orientating bees like normal at 4 pm. We can set our clocks by them!

I checked the hives down through the honey supers yesterday and everything seemed normal, right down to the top of the brood area, including some capped and uncapped brood in the lower super. I took honey off the previous weekend, and there wasn't yet much replaced in the fully drawn comb, so I shifted some drawn comb from the lower super upward.

This is the walkaway split that raised its own queen this spring. Could the hive swarmed? Or could it be that shuffling the frames around inadvertently gave them more room and better air flow through the hive?

On a lighter note, as I was walking around the property looking for a swarm in the trees, I noticed two of my neighbors swatting at a tall bush behind their greenhouse and jumping back quickly. I walked over that way and they yelled "bees!" and ran back to their house. I walked over, thinking they'd found my swarm, and walked into hornets! I backed off and came back about 15 minutes later after they calmed down, and saw a huge paper nest hanging low down near the ground. I thought I might suit up and take care of them, but my neighbors were long gone by then!

-- Kris

Robo · July 12, 2005, 10:06:32 AM

Could it be that it was cooler and or less humid last night?

Did you see any eggs? Usually the queen stops laying to trim down for flight, prior to the swarm. So if you thinked they swarmed, there should be no eggs in the hive. The leaving queen stopped laying and the new queen hasn't started yet.

Queen cells should be there too of course.

Horns Pure Honey · July 12, 2005, 02:59:08 PM

Kris that is all possible but I doubt it. I have a very strong hive that beards about every night but the other night they didnt do it, this continued for a few days even though the others where. They are bearding now and all is well. I figure they just had the hive cooled down enough not to have to fan and hang outside. :)

Kris^ · July 12, 2005, 10:21:06 PM

Unfortunately, I didn't inspect the brood chamber, not wanting to disturb them too much. The nights have been cool, in the upper 60s. I noticed too that the other hive on which I rearranged honey frames (moving emptier ones down) isn't bearding as much, either. But it's always been the weaker hive.

I'll need to check the brood boxes soon and see what I see, eggs or very young brood (there was some young brood in the lower honey super when I checked).

-- Kris

Kris^ · July 13, 2005, 08:42:15 PM

Thanks for the suggestions. I inspected the hive this evening and found lots and lots of brood -- capped and uncapped, very young to ready to cap. And I saw a patch of eggs on the top of a frame in the upper brood box. So they apparently didn't swarm.

I should've left well enough alone then. The bees were really docile, so I decided to look for the queen in the lower box. Well, I pulled the first frame and set it on my frame holder, some bees fell off and attacked my ankle. I broke one of the cardinal rules -- don't wear black socks with a bee suit! I only found one stinger in my sock, but boy that's a bad spot. Hydrocortisone creme and a bandage usually keeps the swelling and itching down though.

-- Kris

TwT · July 13, 2005, 08:55:48 PM

KRIS, I went and seen Bill Owens the other day ( president of the Ga. beekeepers Association and master beek) and he told me to ask all the questions I have but one thing that a beginner does is worry to much about there bee's, watch them and learn and if you see something that is different ask someone on the web or call a experianced beekeeper and they 99.9% will help you and you will see you was worring most the time but not all the time about nothing, just something i thought i would pass on to new people like me.

Kris^ · July 13, 2005, 10:40:22 PM

Yes, last year I had only one hive, and nothing to compare it to. I had my panics, asked questions, tried things, and the hive went as one would expect a first year hive from a package to. I even dealt with a bad varroa infestation and it made it through the winter fine. The suggestions on this forum were invaluable.

This year I have four hives and can make comparisons, And I see differences in them and wonder why. I can understand the differences in genetics and other factors, and I figure that's why my hive 3 has built up slower than the others, but seems otherwise healthy. But a sudden change in one hive makes me nervous. Liz did say that she saw one of our neighbors driving his tractor down our road pulling his pesticide rig behind this past weekend, coming from and going to who knows where. So I don't know exactly why the population seemed to drop, but I know (painfully so!) it is essentially healthy, so I feel more at ease. A problem with one hive is a problem with 25% of my beeyard, after all.

But I am going to leave them alone for a while -- at least 'til the end of the month!

-- Kris