Hive Inspection

Pond Creek Farm · May 09, 2008, 02:53:20 PM

We hived two packages yesterday and did an inspection on our one existing hive. With help from the moderators, I have these pictures to share. (Thanks for the help). The upper deep has Mann Lake PF-100 frames that were installed 4 weeks ago. The bottom has mostly the wood frames with large cell foundation. I am trying to cull this out. We found the queen in the upper deep. I am note sure what to make of the brood patterns I found in the lower deep. Do you all see anything to be concerned about?

annette · May 09, 2008, 05:37:15 PM

Someone more experienced would definitely have to see this. I can read all sorts of things into it, but not sure.

It just looks like the workers haven't learned to build comb properly, and the queen hasn't learned to lay eggs properly. Maybe they need more time. But then again, there is a nice amount of brood.

Lets see what others will say about this.

Kathyp · May 09, 2008, 06:59:02 PM

you did see your queen? looks like a couple of queen cells there. i wouldn't get to excited about that brood pattern if i had it in my hive. looks like maybe your existing queen has, or will be, replaced. in that case, you either had an old queen that wasn't a perfect layer, or a new queen that hasn't quite got the hang of things. plenty of brood.

is that plastic foundation in your wood frames also? that might explain the bits of messy comb.

i'll also be interested in the opinions of the more experienced.

Pond Creek Farm · May 09, 2008, 07:26:25 PM

It is plastic in there too. I am moving plastic in as I can to get the bee size down. This hive is all on large cell foundation and has been totally neglected for two years. (It was given to me). We did find the queen but I should add that when we took the deeps apart, there were several larva torn open. Picture is below.

Kathyp · May 09, 2008, 07:42:27 PM

my humble opinion is that plastic stinks. no, i have not used it, but have read many complaints about it here. have you considered using wax starter strips to achieve small cell? or even skipping the starter strips and just using a wedge or a bead of wax along the top bar? i know some use plastic successfully, but more have problems with it. also, strips or wax bead would save you tons of money! MBs site has info as i recall and there is info on here if you search.

queen cells are on your 1st, 2nd, and (i think) 4th pictures.

breaking open brood happens.

Pond Creek Farm · May 09, 2008, 09:06:23 PM

I am planning on using starter strips in the honey supers and already have two mediums set up with them. (Tillie's video onthe subject was very helpful in figuring out how to do it.). The plastic actually was an idea from MB in that the PF100 (deep) and PF120 (medium) had given him good results for smaller cell bees. I toyed with the idea of starter strips in the deeps, but I needed to wire the frames, and simply ran out of time to do it. I hope the plastic works in that I have the two packages on them as well. The packages come from small cell foundation already and do not need to be regressed. I have the deep wood frames, and could, I suppose, put in starter strips and let the bees draw it out in the new packages. They were jsut put in yesterday and cannot be that far along yet.

Kathyp · May 09, 2008, 09:12:12 PM

hey, if you already have it, you might as well use it. :-) doesn't save you money if you don't!

Ross · May 09, 2008, 09:22:52 PM

They are building drone where ever they can stick a few cells since they can't build it in the frames do to the foundation. They are also building a number of queen cups, probably getting ready to supercede the queen. That's not uncommon with newly installed queens. A fair percentage of them get superceded in a few weeks.

Moonshae · May 09, 2008, 10:13:11 PM

I cut my wired deep foundation into quarters for starter strips. I run a pizza cutter across the middle, then cut each half in half again, then snip the wires in the right places with some wire snips. Could easily make 5 strips out of each sheet, but I don't go that far. I don't know if the wires make any difference, but I've never had any problems, and wired is all I bought initially. I'm still working through all that before i think about buying more foundation...40 sheets of deeps and 20 shallows go a long way when cut down. :)

annette · May 09, 2008, 11:37:35 PM

Now I understand something. You said the bees were already regressed bees (small cell bees). I wonder if they are having trouble drawing out the combs nicely on those large cell frames. Just another opinion.

Pond Creek Farm · May 10, 2008, 12:13:12 AM

Annette, I am sorry, but I have been unclear. The pictures are of a donated hive all on large cell. I also hived two packages of small cell bees. These were done yeterday and are not pictured (although I have many pictures of that as well.), It is the existing hive that I am trying to regress that has the funky looking comb.

annette · May 10, 2008, 11:17:05 PM

Oops!!!

Brian D. Bray · May 11, 2008, 03:51:48 PM

The last picture has close to a dozen supercedure cells in evidence. I say supercedure because they are all over the place, top, bottom, and in between. I would venture that they may not as yet hold eggs or larvae. What disturbs me is that the cells are on what is mostly a drone cell frame, indicating a possible laying worker condition or worn out drone laying queen. I would, therefore, suggest putting a frame of worker brood from another hive in place of that plastic frame and see what develops.

Pond Creek Farm · May 11, 2008, 06:14:28 PM

Brian: I would do that, but this is the only fully developed hive. This one was given to me by a friend who moved. My other two hives are simply packages that I installed last Thursday. I will have to wait and see what happens. Quite frankly, I am kind of interested just to see how it all turns out.

Brian D. Bray · May 11, 2008, 09:41:40 PM

In that case monitor the free hive and when if it shows dwindling due to drone growth then pull a frame from each of your packaged hives after they become established.

Kathyp · May 11, 2008, 09:59:06 PM

brian, why not find and knock off the queen? they seem to know that they need to requeen. looks like they are fixing to do it.

Pond Creek Farm · May 11, 2008, 11:04:57 PM

Kathy: That really should not be an issue. I seem to find the queen in this hive each time I open it up. (I thought I saw two today, but it could be a drone). My queen spotting was easy in March and April because there were no drones here. They may be out by now. The comb certainly had enough drone brood. Should I pinch what I think to be the queen or simply let them rear another who might do it for me? My fear is that they already raised one and I do not know it. What if I pinch the new queen by mistake?

Kathyp · May 12, 2008, 02:04:13 AM

i would probably leave things alone and just see what happens. i just wondered what was behind brians suggestion. i think he's concerned that you have so many drone cells that your worker population is going to diminish. you do have a lot, but you also seem to have a lot of worker brood. you hive is going to, or has already, requeened.

brian has a lot more experience and i'd be interested in his thinking.

Brian D. Bray · May 13, 2008, 06:04:44 PM

Quote from: kathyp on May 12, 2008, 02:04:13 AM
i would probably leave things alone and just see what happens. i just wondered what was behind brians suggestion. i think he's concerned that you have so many drone cells that your worker population is going to diminish. you do have a lot, but you also seem to have a lot of worker brood. you hive is going to, or has already, requeened.

brian has a lot more experience and i'd be interested in his thinking.

From my most recent inspection on Sunday, teaching my daughter so it takes longer, I found my Italian hive in pretty much the same state. The snow and freezing weather we've had every couple of weeks around here has really disrupted the hive whereas the Russians seem to role with the punch better. The Italian hive has had to 86 nearly a frame worth of capped brood and they are now building supercedure cells. Showed all this to my daughter. The other thing that indicates supercedure and unhappiness with the queen is that she was easy to spot on one end of a frame, the bees weren't attending her as normal and seemed almost indifferent to her. The problem is, as is the case I saw in the pictures at the beginning of this thread is that the queen cells don't have eggs in them yet. I plan on giving them another week or 10 days and rechecking. Maybe by that time the Russians will have built up enough so I can pull a brood frame from one of them--Did I mention the weather?
There is also an indication of Parafoulbrood. I've never seen that particualar variant but what I'm seeing isn't AFB or EFB so I figure it's PFB by default. I've got to find my Hive and The Honey Bee and ABC and XYZ and do a little research on PFB.
Anyone had experience with this version of the Black Plague of Bees?