Hive inspection Notes Images and a Question or 2.

[Bee1]

Hi all, be warned - only the patient need proceed.  This has turned into a long post. 

I've been talking this forum up to a friend but I think she is a little computer forum shy.  So far she hasn't logged on though I'd love her to join.  My interest in bees sparked her to renew hers; she kept bees a number of years ago but was not actively keeping bees again until recently.  She gave me my starter hive and is my only face-to-face contact with another beekeeper.  We both installed a single package of bees on Friday April 13th (5 weeks ago).  Yesterday I went to visit her and her hive and have a look inside. I was excited to have the opportunity to see how things looked in her hive and compare that to mine. 

Keep in mind this is only the 2nd-3rd time I’ve done a thorough inspection of any bee hive.  By thorough I mean trying to look at each of the frames to see how things are coming along. 

So how did things look?  Well things looked pretty good, I guess. Check out these pictures…   

We didn't see a queen, however we saw a handful of supercedure cells... Is this normal?   Does this look like a normal healthy laying pattern?  Notice what I believe are supercedure (queen) cells..

picture 1.


picture 2.


picture 3.


picture 4.


picture 5. What's going on here?  Any thoughts?


We saw some capped brood - but how much it the right amount for a 5 week old hive?  We didn't see very many of the uncapped larva and there was lots of honey â€" capped and uncapped â€" much more than in my hive.  On one of the center frames the bees made 2 layers of comb â€" I think this was where the queen cage may originally have been.  That looked like a bit of a mess and we didn’t actually pull these 2 frames out because we were sure comb would just plop into the hive or onto the ground. 

We didn’t see cells that looked like they had new eggs in them.. Do these get harder to see when the comb has been used even once?  I’ve already learned that the comb from the hatched brood takes on a different and darker appearance. 

We were in this hive for a good amount of time. The bees were gentle.  We used a little smoke, wore our veils and we didn’t wear gloves! 

We didn’t see mites or beetles on the bees or frames though we found 2 SH beetles on the regular bottom board when we were adding a screened bottom board.   

Elka is still feeding the hive sugar water in baggies…  one failed sometime overnight and drenched the frames under it.  Is this harmful to the bees, brood, etc? 

Bee1

[Brian D. Bray]

Nice pics, it looks like the hive is progressing normally. 
As for the supercedure cells, it is much more common these days to see supercedure cells almost immediately in packaged bees or even in replacement queens.  I believe it has to do with the amount of toxicity in the wax from applied and foraged chemicals.  Out of 4 packages I haved on April 28th, 1 already has developed supercedure cells. 
If the bees don't like their queen for some reason they will supercede her.  Often as not you end up with a better queen than what you had.
The brood pattern looks a little small, a good queen should be laying eggs from within an inch of all sides of the frame.  Although with a new hive I wouldn't be concerned unless that pattern continued. 
Once the capped brood hatches the number of bees in the hive will triple or quadruple over what is there now.  It will look like a population explosion. 
If the bees are intent on supercedure I would let them.  It will however mean a temporary set back in hive development and population growth until the new queen is mated and begins laying.  The time period for that would be about 3 weeks from the time they cap the queen cell.
Enjoy your bees, after nearly 50 years at beekeeping I'm still learning new things.

[Robo]

They look good to me.   There are many reasons, not understood by man,  why bees supersede queens that appear to be normal to us. If they are intent on doing it, there isn't much you can do to stop them.

I would suggest you stop feeding them before they get bound up.

[Bee1]

Thanks for checking out the pics! What do you mean by bound up? 

[Jerrymac]

Thanks for checking out the pics! What do you mean by bound up? 

They fill the brood nest with syrup and then decide they need to swarm

[Robo]

You should just see syrup along the top 1/3 or so of the frame.  It is hard to tell from the pictures, but it looks like they are storing down along the sides as well.   If they continue to store more it will reduce the area available for the queen to lay.

[Brian D. Bray]

Bound up=honey bound. The bees have too little room to store the nectar they are bring in and so they start using the cells that have been vacated by hatching brood.  At this time of the year that means the hive is over crowded and needs more room.  It is past time to put a super on then.  The bees go into swarm mode.  I've seen hives swarm as late as labor day from being honey bound.

The only time having a hive honey bound is after labor day when you are getting their store to the point of wintering over.  Then the idea is to force a honeybound condition so that there is little or no brood by mid-October and the hive is crammed full of honey.