unproductive hives????

[the-ecohouse.com]

Hi All

I have three hives which are very very busy even at this time of the year, they all feral Carnolian queens.

There no problem with bee production, they are going gain busters there, in fact their is nearly always a cluster of bees hanging out at the entrance (lazy so and so's).

Heres the problem, they produce plenty of propolis, lots of bees but not a lot of wax or honey???

All other other hives in the same area are filling up nicely but not these?

What are your suggestions? Re-queen? there is no shortage of bees they just seem very lazy?

[the-ecohouse.com]

no one else having this problem :?

[yockey5]

Simple, give each queen the hive tool test. If they don't pass, requeen.

[hardwood]

Do you have a flow now?? They won't build wax unless needed.

Scott

[the-ecohouse.com]

hey? whats the hive tool test?

yep there is a good mallee and paperbark flow on... they dont have a drama building comb....they are just not big on storing honey...my thoughts are the worker bees are slack... :shock:

[oblib]

hey? whats the hive tool test?

Thats when you see which can take more pressure, the hive tool or the bee.

[the-ecohouse.com]

lol thats what i thought it might have meant :shock:

[AllenF]

I am wondering what kind of flow you have on right now.   I know here in North Georgia, after July 4th, there is no flow at all until goldenrod in the fall.

[the-ecohouse.com]

mainly mallee and paperbark were i am at the moment

[OzBuzz]

Is it possible a lot of what they're bringing in is going to brood raising rather than excess stores? It also depends on what age your bees are at as to whether they're mainly foragers or nurse bees...

What are their existing stores like? if they don't currently have any excess then I would be confident that the majority of what they're bringing in is going to the bees themselves...

[the-ecohouse.com]

fair call ozbuzz. i wont apply the "hive tool" test to the queens yet

[OzBuzz]

I'd give them some food just to help them along a bit! a zip lock bag with some holes in it with 2:1 on a hive mat above the brood nest underneath the lid

[rawfind]

I'd give them some food just to help them along a bit! a zip lock bag with some holes in it with 2:1 on a hive mat above the brood nest underneath the lid

An empty super on top with a small chicken waterer works really well too  dont forget some stones or sticks in ot to stop the girls drowning.

[OzBuzz]

How did you go with this one mate?

[the-ecohouse.com]

Hey Oz

Still scratching my head on this one :?

Today I boxed all my hives back to one deep and an empty Manley.

Typically I run two deeps ( one brood one honey ) then one Manley on top to catch the small flows.

One of these unproductive hives had 6 queen superceedure cells in the brood box, one had hatched all the other the bees had opened as the queens had been killed.

Hives are in the middle of a stack of gum trees bud'ed up that have started to pop and flower, so well have to see if that changes their attitude a little.

Fingers crossed....now after all that boxing down...time for some honey extraction....

[edward]

Some hives just idle, Split them and make new hives with new queens.

mvh edward :P

[OzBuzz]

One of these unproductive hives had 6 queen superceedure cells in the brood box, one had hatched all the other the bees had opened as the queens had been killed.

Maybe she had died of natural causes? they should pick up with a new queen... if you've got some gums flowering then that should set them up nicely for winter! what have you got flowering at the moment?

[the-ecohouse.com]

some yellow gum and paperbark

[edward]

One of these unproductive hives had 6 queen superceedure cells in the brood box, one had hatched all the other the bees had opened as the queens had been killed.

It was most likely the first queen that killed the other ones.

Hatched queen opens cell at the tip. Killed queen cell , usually opened from the side.

mvh edward  :-P

[the-ecohouse.com]

yep that's right Edward, one opened from the bottom and the rest were all busted open from the side, new queen had wreaked havoc, pity i would have carved them out for the other slow hives.