Open brood from strong queen hive died after...

[Seanjakl]

I am a new keeper this year and working with two new top bar hives. After installing bees on April 18, one hive is doing great and the other is not.  The queen has failed and I am only getting drone cells. My plan is to insert three bars of open brood, one bar per week over three weeks and add two healthy queen cells.  My QUESTION: Seven days ago I inserted a bar containing open brood (as well as capped brood, capped and uncapped honey, empty cells and pollen filled cells). After about 5 days I noticed that the open brood in the first bar have all died and turned black. I don't know how the the sealed brood is doing. Is it normal for the open brood to die when inserted into a new hive?  Am I doing something wrong? Do I have an additional problem?  I am due to insert a second bar of open brood today but hesitant...  looking for any thoughts or suggestions. Thanks.

[Spear]

How far are the hives from each other? Did the brood get chilled in the move? Are there enough bees to cover the frames? Did you take the bees that were on the frames as well? So many variables it is hard to say what went wrong.

[Seanjakl]

thanks for the response Spear. Hives are about 10 feet. I dont think it got chilled when I did the move. Temperature was near 80 degrees that day. Night time lows have been in the mid 60's.  Could direct sunlight for 20 minutes kill them? they were exposed for a while.   there may not be enough bees to cover the comb/frame, however.  Should I remove one or two of the bars with drone cells so that there is a better bee to brood ratio?
I did remove all of the bees before placing in the weak hive.   

[Spear]

I would take the drone brood out and give them some nurse bees to go with the brood. But if you have a virgin queen you might want to keep the drones unless there are other bees in the area with enough drones.

[Seanjakl]

after considering the question of enough or not-enough bees... and talking with an experienced top bar keeper, I realized the colony has become too small to care for the open brood. I think my best option is to merge the two hives. I'll put the remaining bees and comb from the weak colony into the strong hive. I'm going to research my options a little more but I think I will smoke both hives and smoke each frame before putting it in the strong hive. Hopefully they will be disoriented enough to merge without a lot of fighting. Let me know if you have any other suggestions. Thanks

[Steel Tiger]

 Have you thought of just pinching the drone laying queen and simply replacing her?
If you do combine, you might be better off shaking the bees into the hive and getting rid of all the drones.
It would probably upset the balance of the hive to suddenly have 2,000 drones emerging.

[GSF]

<It would probably upset the balance of the hive to suddenly have 2,000 drones emerging.>

Imagine being a virgin queen that emerged the day after the drones did..,

[BlueBee]

Leaving a frame in direct sunlight for 20 minutes would probably do them in IMO.  I've never done it, but if I leave any of my black plastic frames in direct sun for 10 minutes they get hot enough to start melting wax.  One of the downsides to black frames/foundations.  Any brood is going to be dead if the temps are hot enough to melt wax. 

If the heat didn't kill them, the lack of nurse bees (as your experienced beek said) probably allowed them to chill down and die.  Too much heat or too much cold kills things.

If you've got drone comb with capped brood, I would just cull them.  You probably don't have a bad mite infestation yet (1st year), but there's no point in accelerating the mite multiplication IMO.

I rarely shake bees from a frame I'm adding to another hive/nuc.  The only time I usually do if when I'm shaking a swarm into a new box because I know there will be plenty of bees in a swarm to tend to the brood.  The smoke and confusion in your case should be enough to prevent problems. 

If you want to run both hives again, wait until your first hive gets up to high strength (lots of capped brood) and do an aggressive split into your second box.  Then let them make their own queen or buy one.  I've bought some nice queens from Ohio in the past.

[BeeMaster2]

I would take the drone brood out and give them some nurse bees to go with the brood. But if you have a virgin queen you might want to keep the drones unless there are other bees in the area with enough drones.

Spear,
Drones in your apiary are of no value to your virgin queens. The queens will fly twice as far as the drones will to find drones to mate with. Natures way of preventing them from mating with their sons.
Jim

[Dallasbeek]

I would take the drone brood out and give them some nurse bees to go with the brood. But if you have a virgin queen you might want to keep the drones unless there are other bees in the area with enough drones.

Spear,
Drones in your apiary are of no value to your virgin queens. The queens will fly twice as far as the drones will to find drones to mate with. Natures way of preventing them from mating with their sons.
Jim

Jim,

Do you mean nature's way of preventing them from mating with their brothers?  But you are definitely correct in the rest of it.  If they DO mate with a drone from their own hive, I've read they'll lay a really spotty pattern.  Why is that?  Shooting blanks? 

[AR Beekeeper]

A study on queen mating in isolated mating areas that was done in Europe found that in isolated areas 52% of queens mated with drones from the same apiary the queens came from.  Queens will mate with available drones, rather than not mate at all.

[BeeMaster2]

I would take the drone brood out and give them some nurse bees to go with the brood. But if you have a virgin queen you might want to keep the drones unless there are other bees in the area with enough drones.

Spear,
Drones in your apiary are of no value to your virgin queens. The queens will fly twice as far as the drones will to find drones to mate with. Natures way of preventing them from mating with their sons.
Jim

Jim,

Do you mean nature's way of preventing them from mating with their brothers?  But you are definitely correct in the rest of it.  If they DO mate with a drone from their own hive, I've read they'll lay a really spotty pattern.  Why is that?  Shooting blanks? 

Yes, their brother.
The worker eggs have the genetics of half of the queen and half of the drone. The drones genes are from it's mother and grandfather. If the egg is fertilized from the drones grandfather, the bees will allow it to develop and become a bee. If it was from the mother, the bees will detect that and remove the egg. Hence the spotty pattern. You end up with a 50% removal if she only mated with her brothers.
Jim