Why hasn't my hive built up?

sweet bee · September 24, 2011, 05:26:40 PM

I installed 2 packages in May using 2 - 8 frame Medium hives. One hive seemed to build up comb faster, more activity in front of the hive, agressive in guarding the entrances ( I have recently added a 3rd super). The second hive is slower paced, always plenty of brood and even though there seemed to be plenty of bees, they are not great about guarding the entrances and still have not done anything the the 2nd super. I checked them today, still lots of brood of all stages. They appear to be very healthy happy go lucky bees and 2-3 SHB is all I found. My question is why hasn't the hive built up enough to move up to the second super? With Fall here, do I need to be concerned about their survival rate and what can I do to help them?

~Angie

Shanevrr · September 24, 2011, 07:03:28 PM

Did you feed after installing package? Have you been doing inspections? It could be poor queen, disease, queen could have been superceded/lost resulting in a month delay of brood. Were they honey bound, no room for brood? How was brood patten all summer? Worse case you can combine.

sweet bee · September 24, 2011, 08:16:13 PM

I fed for 2 weeks after installation. Did hive inspections every other week for the 3 months- always plenty of brood of all stages-I've been able to keep very low numbers on the SMB-All 8 frames are full of brood and honey and covered in bees. A hand full or two of bees hanging out on the frames in the second super...just not working them. I started feeding them a week ago and reduced the entrance to 1 inch. I was just kind of puzzled as to why they aren't booming with bees :? Thank you for your advice-Appreciated-As always :)

LoriMNnice · September 24, 2011, 08:30:05 PM

I am to new to know anything but just curious...could there have been a swarm? And that is why there are not as many bees in the hive? Just wondering.

sweet bee · September 24, 2011, 10:29:12 PM

I tried to watch out for swarming but that may be a possibility. I thought about taking frames of brood from the other hive to strengthen this one before the winter. I went in it today expecting to see very little brood but was suprised to see that it actually had quite a bit. So maybe they will be ok by the time colder weather rolls in.

~Angie

BlueBee · September 25, 2011, 05:29:37 AM

Bees need nectar, pollen, and bees to build up. Since you have summer dearths in the south, that may have hampered your hive. The number of bees you start with also plays a big role. A small colony of bees takes a lot longer to create a 'booming' box of bees. It can take a small colony a full season to just to build up to a normal sized hive.

You can 'see the future' of your hive by how much surface area the queen has brooded up. A standard cell deep frame has a shade over 6000 cells. If you have 70% of a frame filled with brood and you have 6 of your 8 frames with brood, then math will tell you that your FUTURE is good! 6 frames x 6000 cells x 0.70 = 25,200 new bees within the next 21 days. That's a pretty significant number of bees (6 pounds). That many bees will build more comb.

You mentioned you've had brood all summer, but how much of each medium frame was filled with brood? 70%, 50%, 20%? That makes a huge difference. Also keep in mind that each medium frame only has about 4200 cells, so the numbers per frame don't add up as quickly as deep frames.

BjornBee · September 25, 2011, 09:28:58 AM

Not sure the date in May you installed these packages. So lets just assume for this, that you installed on the 15th of May.

So you put in the bees on May 15th.
Queen gets out of the cage on the 18th.
Queen starts laying on the 21 of May.
Her eggs start hatching out on 7 June.
Her new bees do not become forage bees till at least June 16th.

During the first month of a newly installed package, (because those dates listed above are sometimes longer than suggested) your hive is declining in numbers, through natural die-off of old age bees, attrition in the field, etc. So your hive a month later after installing the package is sometime 60-70% of what you started. Only them do they start building up.

To put it in perspective, our main flow here in Pennsylvania is late April through mid-June. Most packages are installed in April, or the beginning of May. Your in Georgia, and you got you be at least a month or more ahead of us in your main flow periods. (dandelion, clover, etc.) So installing a package in May in Georgia would be like installing a package here in Pennsylvania in late June. And that means you missed most of the flow and time that packages need to really benefit the most.

The fact that one hive did better than the other means nothing. Some always do better than others. I think the fact you only fed for two weeks, and got a late start, it sounds about right. New packages should be fed almost all summer especially for drawing out comb. Bees usually slow wax production (even in the south) and get frugal with stores after the summer solstice. And this was about the time your bees starting building up. Yet the days started getting shorter, your main flow was over, and you stopped feeding. So this is the end result.

There are always hives that do great and draw comb later than others. Afterall, we are dealing with insects. Just be grateful that one hive did so well. And the other probably was more in line with what normally happens.

sweet bee · September 26, 2011, 12:13:22 AM

Thank you Blue and Bjorn,

I had not considered the size of frame or the length of time that I've had them. Since I don't know any other local beekeepers, I only had my other hive to compare it to, so it always seemed to be way behind. I did the install on May 7th and that was probably at the end of the flow for this area. I appreciate all of the advice given...I'm a work in progress with an occasional "flip out" over these bees. So thank you :-D

~Angie

BlueBee · September 26, 2011, 12:34:53 AM

Sweet new bee, I wasn't intending to give the impression that your hive was building up slower because you are using mediums. Lots of folks on here use mediums and they work well for them. The thing I was trying to convey is you can really predict your own future by monitoring what percentage of your frames has brood. If your future is not looking so bright (low % of brood), there as some things you can try to improve your future.

If your slow hive is using a smaller percentage of the frames for brood, that may give you a clue to focus on. Maybe that brood nest became more honey bound than the other hive. When the bees pack honey into the brood area, they lessen the amount of space the queen can lay. If that is happening, you can insert a new frame into the brood nest to give the queen more room to lay.

It is true that a deep frame has a lot more cells per frame, but most people with mediums have brood nests that span many boxes and hence in the end the queen have as many cells in deep or medium configurations.