Need some advice

Riggs · October 08, 2011, 10:30:08 PM

OK, I don't ask many questions on here, but here goes.
I only have one hive, started by a nuc in late May, In my opinion it grew fairy slow, I still only have two 8 frame medium boxes drawn out. About 2-3 weeks ago I checked on them, to start preparing for winter and found that they had almost nothing stored, some pollen, but nearly no honey. I fed them 3/2 sugar water, and I guess I got a little over eager. I checked them today, and almost every frame was full of either syrup/honey or pollen. I saw no capped brood, and very few empty cells. I have already stopped feeding.

This is my first year, and my only hive, so I have nearly no resources (empty drawn frames, ect.) to fall back on, and no one other than the folks here to ask.

What do I need to do to get them ready for winter?

Shanevrr · October 08, 2011, 10:42:26 PM

sounds like you may be queenless. Do you see her? Did you have a swarm and maybe missed it? Do you have pest or disease

Riggs · October 08, 2011, 10:48:09 PM

Nope, I saw the queen, I think I just overfed, I just don't know what to do to fix it, or if I need to do anything.

schawee · October 08, 2011, 11:02:24 PM

sounds like your hive is honey bound and the queen has no place to lay.just leave them and as they eat the honey they will have open cells for the queen to lay.

BlueBee · October 08, 2011, 11:04:08 PM

If you were in Michigan, your bees would be in good shape, as our winter if just around the corner. Here we don't want more brood and want the hive packed with food for winter. They will eat the stores over winter freeing up space for new baby bees in the spring.

In NC, I don't know, this may be too soon. Maybe Frameshift in NC will chime in.

If you need to/want to/ free up some space for brood, you could extract a frame and insert it in the middle of the brood nest for the queen. If you don't have an extractor, you could just take a frame out and let the robbers rob it clean. Then stick it in the middle of the brood nest.

It can take a nuc a whole season to build up if conditions aren't great. The bees don't really start booming until you have a fairly sizable population to make huge amounts of baby bees.

iddee · October 08, 2011, 11:09:25 PM

I would set another super under the two you have and keep feeding for a week. Then if they were drawing comb, I would continue. If not, I would quit feeding. Be sure you have a mouse guard on. They won't be protecting the bottom box if they aren't drawing it.

Shanevrr · October 08, 2011, 11:20:13 PM

do you have any spare frames with foundation, maybe replace a couple of full frames with empty ones

RayMarler · October 09, 2011, 01:32:10 AM

Just grab a frame or two that's full of thin open nectar/syrup and fling the nectar out of the frame/s, onto the ground, and put the empty frame/s back in middle of the top box. This will give them room to move honey up from bottom to lay if needed, or room to lay in center of top of they want, and will be cluster space in top in either case.

bee-nuts · October 09, 2011, 04:54:18 AM

Some good advice here. This is what I would do. First a tid bit of info and fact/opinion

I dont know anything about NC and what kind of brood nest is needed for winter there. What I do know/believe is that a colony of honeybees in Wisconsin needs to have open comb going into winter to cluster in or they are very prone to freezing out with the first hard cold snap that comes through. In north carolina that may not be true but I think it is still an issue to take seriously.

I would add another box to the bottom like iddee suggests. I would however do the following. Let x equal a full frame of honey and o a frame of foundation and p a frame with pollen. I would move frames around to end up with the following configuration.

xxxxxxxx
xxpoopxx
xoooooox

or something similar

I would continue feeding but not hard. I would feed with an inverted jar with holes small enough to prevent them from taking it fast. I would also add a pollen patty between the top two boxes. By feeding slow, and giving pollen, they should draw comb but slow enough that the queen can lay eggs in them, the pollen patties should encourage brood rearing. By the time winter sets into your area, you may have a colony in better or a more normal situation. If they just dont respond or die out over winter, you have a hive full of stores and ready to take off when you add a package of bees.

What Ray suggests, would also be a good idea, you could however extract or shake out if you can, a couple frames and keep for feed, and insert these into second box in place of foundation. The queen should lay in the drawn comb.

T Beek · October 09, 2011, 10:23:17 AM

Excellent; I'm w/ iddee and bee-nuts.

Not so sure about RayMarler advise of dumping syrup (anything) on the ground though. IMO That's asking for trouble where there was none, especially this time of year.

thomas

Riggs · October 09, 2011, 10:48:10 AM

Thank you all for the input, I will add another super on the bottom this afternoon when it warms up a little. Even if they don't get them filled out, leave it that way for winter?

iddee · October 09, 2011, 12:30:34 PM

If they work it, leave it on even if they don't fill it. That's the reason for putting it on the bottom. Empty space below them won't hurt. If they don't work it at all, I would remove it after 2 weeks, just because it won't be used.

caticind · October 10, 2011, 01:23:12 PM

In NC we are still up to a month off from the first hard freeze, and your hive is pretty small, so you could put on another super and see if they draw it. Can be hard to get the bees to draw this time of year, though.

Extracting a frame or two and putting them back in place is a fine suggestion - you can always feed the honey/sugar stores back if they are running low in February.

You said you had little brood being raised - how many frames were covered in bees?

Riggs · October 10, 2011, 02:42:51 PM

Pretty much every frame was covered with bees, they were also full of pollen/syrup.
I only saw patches of capped brood on a couple of frames.
I put a super on the bottom yesterday with new foundation (thats all I had to work with).
I am going to feed them via jar this evening as bee-nuts suggested. Would it be best to go with 1:1 or something a little thicker?

Thanks again for all of the input.

iddee · October 10, 2011, 03:08:32 PM

Go with 2:1. You want them storing it. There is a goldenrod flow on here. I could smell it in the bee yard this morning. They may not take feed, or may take it slowly. Keep it on them anyway.

rail · October 10, 2011, 06:38:12 PM

Riggs,

I had a similar problem to yours, small colony.

I took an inner cover and bored four holes in each corner to receive mason jar feeders. Feed them with 1:1 and dry pollen substitute on the top of the frames and added a deep under. They drew out 8 frames of deep foudationless and she laid 5 full frames of brood (I kept inserting frames in the middle of the nest).

A week before the Aster and Golden Rod flow I reduced their feed by using lids on the mason jars with only three holes instead of ten.

I am not feeding them now and they are working hard bringing in copious amounts of pollen. The hive entrance looks like JFK airport with traffic.

FRAMEshift · October 18, 2011, 09:15:28 AM

Riggs, how is your hive doing now? Two 8 frame mediums full of bees is enough to overwinter. And you seem to have quite a bit of stores also. I'm not sure you need to do anything at all. The bees will consume some of those stores between now and cold weather. That will make room for some November brood... the winter bees you will need to get you through. If you have been able to get the bees to draw some more comb in the lower box, that is even better.

You started with a nuc very late in the season. You only had about 1 month of flow and that was with a small bee population, so it's no surprise that you didn't store much honey. If you did not feed until recently, I would say your bees did very well to get through the dearth and build up to two mediums. I think you should feel really good about your first bee season. :-D

Riggs · October 19, 2011, 07:58:17 PM

Quote from: FRAMEshift on October 18, 2011, 09:15:28 AM
Riggs, how is your hive doing now? Two 8 frame mediums full of bees is enough to overwinter. And you seem to have quite a bit of stores also. I'm not sure you need to do anything at all. The bees will consume some of those stores between now and cold weather. That will make room for some November brood... the winter bees you will need to get you through. If you have been able to get the bees to draw some more comb in the lower box, that is even better.

You started with a nuc very late in the season. You only had about 1 month of flow and that was with a small bee population, so it's no surprise that you didn't store much honey. If you did not feed until recently, I would say your bees did very well to get through the dearth and build up to two mediums. I think you should feel really good about your first bee season. :-D

I checked them yesterday on what looks like might be our last really warm day. They hadn't drawn out anything on the bottom super so i took it off. They are still taking syrup from my top feeder so I left it on.
Even if they don't make it through the winter, I learned alot, and enjoyed every second of it.

Thanks for checking up on me, and thanks to all for the input. It's always good to get feedback, especially from folks from my neck of the woods.