NUC Disaster.....mourning my loss.

[asprince]

Last Sunday, I found one of my hives with several queen cells. I decided to take some of the frames of bees with the queen cells and some brood, pollen, and honey and start a NUC. I basically divided the hive.

Today I decided to check on them. Bees were flying in and out of the old hive, lots of activity. The NUC had no activity. When I took the top off the NUC, I almost threw up! It was full of maggots, thousands of them.

I called my mentor. He came and looked and diagnosed hive beetles. It appears that most of the bees that I split off went back to the main hive and left the NUC weak and the SHB too over. I see beetles now and then but not in large numbers.

So my friends, do not underestimate the power of those little unwanted guest scurrying around when you open your hive. Left unchecked, they are NASTY.

Grieving in Georgia, Steve

[doak]

If the colony is big enough to split to begin with, I find it better to put the new split in the old spot and
leave plenty of brood and house bees in the old one to be moved to the new spotwith the queen.
Just make sure you have a frame or two in the new one that has eggs and just hatched brood.
The frames you pick for the new split will have house/nurse bees on them, they will not leave.
Put one frame with eggs and one with mostly capped brood in the new one.
The house bees and hatching brood in the one you move with the queenwill keep the population high enough to have enough strength to resist most of the time.
The field bees will return to the old location and give plenty for defence.
My put.
doak

[TwT]

sorry to hear that, I have been lucky here, they seem to not like all this red clay, the most i have ever counted was 15 in a season.....

[Cindi]

Steve, I am sorry to hear of what happened to your nuc.  It is disgusting that the SHB is such a hideous predcator.  It is a sad state of affairs when one discovers this type of ugliness.  BUT....you learned a lesson.  Doak told you some very good advice, listen and learn.  I am listening and learning too.  So far, we are not inflicted with the small hive beetle in our locale, and I thank my lucky stars that it is not a thing to be concerned about.  I feel sorry for the more southern beekeepers that this pest wreaks havoc with.  So sad....sorry to hear about this.  But, nevertheless, have a wonderful day, and ejoy this life we're livin'.  Cindi

[JP]

Steve, I had a similar problem with a small hive I removed. I was going to transfer them from the nuc I had them in, but I had them in a relative shady area. I see shbs in feral hives all the time but not in any significant numbers. I never fret over them. This hive got overrun with them, first time I ever had to deal with them, wound up losing that small hive, I was disappointed as you are now. Sorry for your loss. Hopefully we can both learn from this experience and put it to use. Numbers vary with hives, we suffer setbacks, we gain some hives we lose some, that's bekeeping. Good luck in the future. This is not to say that we of course shouldn't try to minimize our loses and maximize our gains.