What Happened?

GSF · May 14, 2014, 10:03:49 PM

I worked/walked all day in the rain (over 3" in Montgomery). So my plans when I get home is to clean up, dry up, and wait for bed.

To keep it short as possible. I was out front in the rain (all day rain 60s temp) looking to see how the hives have taken down the new formula I got from here (Laura's something). When I looked at one of my March packages there were about 2 double handfuls of bees on the carpet on the ground. So first thing I think of is pesticides! But no other hive out of my 8 are showing this. All of them has white carpet out front with no more than "a" bee or two dead. Then I think "swarm?" so I go to the biggest pile of bees and started sifting through it. There she was in the middle. So I caught her and put her in the entrance and she crawled right on in there. The bees with the queen was in one big bunch about a double handful, another bunch about 8 inches away would be a handful and the rest were scattered around crawling or in bunches of maybe 5 or 10. Caught two stings on the fingers.

What would cause this? Maybe the queen took a stroll and got stuck on the wet landing board where she ended up on the ground? I scooped up about half the bees, put them at the entrance, then moved them inside with a spoon. I guess I'll check tomorrow to see if they ended up back outside. It'll probably be Sun or Tues before I can do a queen check. I added a super around 4-22. The last frame by frame inspection was 4 20. Since this was a package I wasn't too worried about a swarm. Would they swarm duing a downpour and get knocked to the ground?

Just trying to figure this one out. Thanks for your input.

MsCarol · May 14, 2014, 10:20:45 PM

No real input......

but herding bees is a bit like herding cats!!!

The crappy weather was to your advantage as they couldn't go far. For the moment she is home and dry. We are just now getting some of that rain. We NEED it!!!

10framer · May 14, 2014, 10:35:55 PM

not sure what's going on but you should be in the middle of the main flow why are you feeding?

GSF · May 15, 2014, 05:45:07 AM

I was under the impression it would help in the build up. These three hives only took about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of a quart in the last 24 hours. One of the other packages are taking it pretty good.

Intheswamp · May 15, 2014, 10:35:34 AM

I take it that you're not planning on trying to take any honey this year?

Ok, I'll throw some ideas out there, some food for thought... Is the colony population large and is/was it strong enough to want to swarm? Was it a failed swarm attempt where the queen made an attempt to fly but she was unable to due to her physical condition or maybe the rain knocked her down? With just a couple of handfuls of bees with the queen could it have been a cast/afterswarm with a virgin queen and the primary swarm had already left? If the population has dwindled dwon and is small could the colony have been attempting to abscond? It will be interesting to hear your inspection report.

Ed

OldMech · May 15, 2014, 11:32:48 AM

Your doing fine offering them syrup, and it WILL help them get started. Especially in the first few days while they organize and get foragers bringing in the supplies.
Once they are established I would probably stop feeding, so they do not fill the comb they build with syrup as fast as they build it. plugging up the brood chamber is never a good thing. Might be worth a look when you inspect to insure they are not doing this. make sure the queen has a place to lay or they could abscond.
New packages tend to be greedy gluttons, and will take syrup when they dont need it. established hives are a little calmer and may even stop taking the syrup when a flow is on.
Like Ed said, interested in hearing the inspection report.

10framer · May 15, 2014, 02:07:09 PM

Quote from: OldMech on May 15, 2014, 11:32:48 AM
Your doing fine offering them syrup, and it WILL help them get started. Especially in the first few days while they organize and get foragers bringing in the supplies.
Once they are established I would probably stop feeding, so they do not fill the comb they build with syrup as fast as they build it. plugging up the brood chamber is never a good thing. Might be worth a look when you inspect to insure they are not doing this. make sure the queen has a place to lay or they could abscond.
New packages tend to be greedy gluttons, and will take syrup when they dont need it. established hives are a little calmer and may even stop taking the syrup when a flow is on.
Like Ed said, interested in hearing the inspection report.

these are packages he installed 2 months ago and the main flow should pretty much be on in his area right now. i'm betting it's a pop up swarm or a swarm that tried to leave and the queen wasn't ready to fly that got caught by the storms trying to come back.
gary, the sun should be coming out over your way by now from what i saw on the radar while ago. i'd look high in all the trees this afternoon if i were you. now that all the leaves are out the swarms seem to settle higher than they did a month ago.
make sure you don't need to be giving those bees room. i have a swarm i caught maybe three weeks ago that had an unmated queen (saw her come back from a mating flight with about half of a drone still hanging out of her) that has drawn ten deep frames of foundation and is working on the next 5 right now.
new hives work fast during a flow like this. if i remember right you got your bees last year in late june after the main flows were over, things happen faster when the privet and poplars are blooming.

GSF · May 15, 2014, 07:44:26 PM

I just got home from work and walked out there. The underside-inside of the hive is thick with bees. This is a pretty strong hive. Everything seems to be back to normal. My wife said about mid day today there were a noticeable number of bees in about the same place as they were yesterday. She also said there were a bunch of them crawling around and a bunch were in the entrance fanning. But this afternoon, normal. No queen less roar.

I would probably be guilty of "over" feeding them. I got them the last of March and haven't quit feeding them yet in hopes of encouraging them to draw out more frames. I have to get a physical tomorrow so I'll probably have time to inspect.

Right now with what I've seen I tend to lean toward a swarm gone wrong. Thanks for everyone's comments.

(modified) Ed; I had a slimmer of a hope that I might get one frame of honey. But my main goal was to build the apiary up.

10framer · May 15, 2014, 07:50:51 PM

gary, is the privet still going strong over there?

GSF · May 15, 2014, 10:31:51 PM

<gary, the sun should be coming out over your way by now from what i saw on the radar while ago. i'd look high in all the trees this afternoon if i were you. now that all the leaves are out the swarms seem to settle higher than they did a month ago.>

First of all Rob; Thanks! Because of that suggestion I caught my fist swarm around here at home. About 2/3rds the size of a football. I had a 27 ft extension ladder topped out. I got popped twice coming down the ladder.

Yes, the privet is still going pretty good. I still plan to go through my hive, and now maybe hives tomorrow looking for a missing queen and looking at available laying space.

10framer · May 16, 2014, 12:03:54 AM

this time of the year it pays to look up.

GSF · May 16, 2014, 07:18:12 AM

Did I mention that this was a tree that had a swarm trap in it? About 17 feet below it. At least I picked the right tree.

BlueBee · May 16, 2014, 07:52:33 AM

A swarm gone wrong sounds like the most likely scenario. If so, they'll try again soon. You better do an inspection as soon as the weather breaks. I've also seen a small swarm try to move into an existing hive before too. They hung out on the landing board for quite some time. In bad weather they might have been washed onto the ground.

3" is just a little drizzle compared to what we've had to deal with. We've got Waterworld 2 up here.

GSF · May 16, 2014, 06:39:01 PM

Update.

I have 3 hives where this took place. I found the swarm in a tree about 30 feet from the 3 hives. I have another 5 (now 6) about a hundred yards off.

I went through the suspect hive first. (#2)Less than a month ago I added a second 8f m super. Over 5 1/2 frames out of 8 already filled out. Plenty of bees so I added another super. I also saw the Queen. So if the swarm came from that hive it had to be a virgin q. I don't think it was because there was plenty of bees in the box. After I inspected this hive I started hearing a noise coming from where I saw the queen. I also had seen some swarm cells in there as well. I started to go back through and look for a second queen. I regret I didn't do it but I wasn't sure if that was a pipping noise or not. It wasn't like the one I heard on you tube. This was more of a deep clicking noise. More like a clack than a click - if there is such a thing.

So I went to the first hive,(#1) plenty of capped brood, saw the queen. They haven't touched the super I added(may04), but they will - too much capped brood to occupy just that one super.

On the third one(#3) I stopped short. I had added a super on 20 Apr. 8f m, six of the eight frames filled out & up. Added another super. I stopped because I was finding brood in the honey super and I was tearing everything up because of the bur comb. Tons of bees. At one time today I would have sworn they were fixing to swarm. I guess it was an orientation flight. If so then they'll fill the next super out pretty quick.

sterling · May 17, 2014, 11:32:20 AM

Sounds like you may be feeding to much and not keeping them enough room. The packages should be building up instead of swarming.
With that kind of flow plus the syrup they are probably filling all the brood cells with nectar and syrup no room for the queen to lay so they think they are strong start queen cells and take off.

GSF · May 17, 2014, 10:33:24 PM

Sterling, I can't disagree with that. What two of the hives are doing is filling out combs then filling them up. If I can get away with it I'll do it all summer. I don't have any drawn comb for honey. I plan to pull a couple of supers and extract the sugar syrup. They I'll put empty supers with no comb (foundation frames), feed the sugar syrup back to them and see if they will keep drawing comb. Probably tomorrow I'll see if I can get the frame with the q cells out and start a nuke. The bees in this box is the kind of bees you want. Some of the workers and drones are black. The queen is laying wide open and the workers are drawing comb night and day - so it seems.