How long for nurse bees to be bumped up the hierarchy? in a nurse bee rich hive

[OzBuzz]

Quick question - i split a triple hive and a quad hive the other week. I took one box from each which had brood and stores - the older bees would have returned to the original hives leaving behind mostly nurse bees - i've also introduced new queens to these hives and these have been released (although i haven't checked yet for acceptance/laying). What i noticed yesterday on these two boxes though is that there were no foragers coming or going - weather was perfect (33oC or 91oF) and the other hives had bees coming and going... the boxes are packed full of bees but no one is going to get food. How long until the nurse bees step up? should i be concerned about these guys starving out if no nurse bees step up?

[iddee]

They will step up. It just takes a day or two for them to realize they need to recruit foragers.

[iddee]

Sorry for the double post. Mod, remove this one.

[OzBuzz]

They will step up. It just takes a day or two for them to realize they need to recruit foragers.

Thanks iddee,

If they had stores would this slow the process?

[iddee]

That, I don't know. I just know they distribute the work load through the bees they have. Foragers will even revert back to nurse bees if needed.

[scdw43]

Just make sure they have plenty of feed and they will work it out, in time. I have read that a bee becomes a forager at 18 or 19 days or forty days from the time the egg is laid.

[Finski]

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Bees must be over two weeks old before they forage.
When i have made mating nucs from emeging frames,
there is no foraging traffic inside next 2 weeks = bringing pollen

[Finski]

They will step up. It just takes a day or two for them to realize they need to recruit foragers.

sorry iddee, it does not work so

[iddee]

Finski, he used bees of all ages. The older ones returned home. There were others just days, or even hours, from becoming flyers.
You used only emerging brood. There is a big difference. In his case, yes, it does work so.

As for reverting, I use open brood and eggs, no bees, in a trap  out. Only foragers are captured. They revert back to house bees and tend brood, clean house and process honey and pollen. In that case, again, yes, it does work so.

[Finski]

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Question was, how soon nurser bees became foragers.
Not so that  how fast foragers return to nursers

[FRAMEshift]

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Question was, how soon nurser bees became foragers.
Not so that  how fast foragers return to nursers

Finski,  I think iddee is saying that even though you have some nurse bees older than 2 weeks, it still may take them a day or two to figure out they need to forage.  He was not saying that two day old bees can forage.

[Finski]

Ozbuzz made a nuc and the bees which had oriented their home, have returned to original home. - more or less.  those nurser bees who stays are less than 3 days old. New bees emerge  all the time.

However it takes 2 weeks that nuc start to forage. And first bees are not enough. They need hundreds to get food out.

i have hoped too that the false swarm is flexible and it starts to forage, but it does not.
Swarmed hive acts same way.

[FRAMEshift]

.  those nurser bees who stays are less than 3 days old. New bees emerge  all the time.

I don't understand what you are saying.  Bees normally start to forage at 42 days of age.  Any bees that are not foraging when you do a split will stay with the "false swarm".  So there must be bees up to 42 days old in the new hive.  Some of them will be storage bees and some will be nurse bees and some will be cell cleaners, and yes some will be constantly emerging. 

I have seen foragers from a "false swarm" within a week... not in large numbers but they were foraging.  I think the problem here is numbers.  It depends on what fraction of the hive are house bees when you do the split.  If the hive is mostly foragers before the split, you won't see lots of foragers until more bees have emerged and been "fast promoted" to foragers.  Yes, that probably takes two weeks.

[Finski]

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Where you have got that 42 days? I have never met that kind of number.

42 days= 6 weeks.
It must be from egg to forager.

[OzBuzz]

Looks like my question has raised some interesting discussion... to clarify a little further - the hive is a full size 8 frame box and it's packed with bees along with capped brood - so there would definitely be emerging bees but all of the bees that are in there would not be two or three days old - it would be impossible. So i would have expected that there would be some bees that are of age to step up to the foraging work naturally - what i am asking, more or less, is does the hive 'sense' that there aren't many forager bees and graduate some of the older house bees to foraging duties - if so how quickly can this happen... the hive also has a brand new queen which, fingers crossed, has been accepted and is laying.

[FRAMEshift]

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Where you have got that 42 days? I have never met that kind of number.

42 days= 6 weeks.
It must be from egg to forager.

Yes, egg to forager

[FRAMEshift]

does the hive 'sense' that there aren't many forager bees and graduate some of the older house bees to foraging duties - if so how quickly can this happen...

Yes, they do sense the need for foragers.  I have read somewhere (I think it was "The Hive and the Honeybee") that bees can become foragers as early as 7 days after emergence under the conditions you describe.  I can't verify that from my own experience.  If you mean how fast can older house bees make the switch, I think it should only be a few days.... but there may not be huge numbers available in the right age range. 

I would think that as long as there are adequate stores, the first priority for the bees would be to care for the brood.  So the nurse bees may be too busy with brood to switch to foraging.  As Finski says, after two weeks many of the nurse bees would be freed up by new nurse bees so they can switch to foraging.

[iddee]

As Frameshift said, YES to your question. Your bees should have a few foragers "scouts" within 3 to 4 days after the split, and more each day if there is a flow going on.

[Finski]

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Yes, they do sense the need for foragers.  I have read somewhere (I think it was "The Hive and the Honeybee") that bees can become foragers as early as 7 days after emergence under the conditions you describe.  I can't verify that from my own experience.

i use to do just emerged bees nucs in their home yard. I have followed tens of years that under 2 weeks bees do not forage. It takes more than 2 weeks that pollen starts to  go in.

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[FRAMEshift]

Finski, how did you do nucs with just newly emerged bees?  I have read research where capped brood was placed in a temperature controlled chamber and all the nurse bees were removed.  But if you don't do that, then there must be at least one nurse bee for each two capped cells, to keep them warm.  So when all those bees emerge, you still have 1/3 of the hive that is older.

Of course, you could mark all the nurse bees and then any bee that was not marked would be newly emerged.  Wow, that's a lot of work. 

How were you able to tell that the bees under 2 weeks did not forage?