What did you do in your Apiary/Bee yard today?

[NigelP]

The more important question is what is wrong with your colony? I can already see EFB looking larvae in your photo. CALL INSPECTOR get some expert advice rather than from a suspect mentor who advises 1:1 for winter feeding DOH.  Don't stick your head in the sand and ignore things. IF you do have EFB your inaction my lead to the spread of disease to a lot of other beekeepers colonies. Do you want that on your head because you were too proud to ask for expert advice?
Eggs and queen mean nothing if your colony is badly infected; as your description and photos indicate.

[Kathyp]

Eggs and queen mean nothing if your colony is badly infected; as your description and photos indicate.

While I don't disagree with you that some expert advice would be good, in the meantime, this looks more like lack of care because there are not enough bees to cover the brood. 

while he waits for that expert advice, assuming he can get someone out, there are few things he can do. 

[Kathyp]

And I have more questions on syrup...does it all get put into storage or is some of it used to make bee bread? And what is the connection between 1:1 syrup and making wax?

I am not sure why you are thinking about drawing cells this late in the year.  when is your 1st frost? How quickly are your days shortening?  You are slightly south of my latitude but not by much.  Think fall, not summer in your current care.  You want as much brood as you can get and enough stores as you can get in.  You don't want them spending energy building more comb even if you could get them to do that right now. 

Make sure you have an adequate-sized brood nest that can be covered by workers.  Make sure stores are in.  Remove everything else.  Yes, you can shake in young workers.  They don't care much where they are.  Just don't shake the queen.  OR you can swap that hive location with the location of a strong hive and the workers will enter the weaker hive. 
That any of this helps depends on whether or not you have disease in there as NigelP suggests.

[jtcmedic]

Mowed

[Ben Framed]

The more important question is what is wrong with your colony? I can already see EFB looking larvae in your photo. CALL INSPECTOR get some expert advice rather than from a suspect mentor who advises 1:1 for winter feeding DOH.  Don't stick your head in the sand and ignore things. IF you do have EFB your inaction my lead to the spread of disease to a lot of other beekeepers colonies. Do you want that on your head because you were too proud to ask for expert advice?
Eggs and queen mean nothing if your colony is badly infected; as your description and photos indicate.

Exactly!

[Ben Framed]

Mowed

From what I can see, looks like  a good location for your bees jtc.
There is something rewarding when mowing by the bees while wearing protection, almost fun! lol 

[Terri Yaki]

I did put a call in to our local bee inspector yesterday, I probably won't hear from him until at least Tuesday.

In case this line was overlooked in the pile. In the meantime, I need to mitigate damages as much as possible. I am but a newbee but from what I am gathering, I suspect that this is from a lack of food for the larvae and not enough workers to cover the brood. My hives are still kind of thin on comb so if I could safely coerce them to build some more, I'd bee happy about that. At this point, after condensing it, there is no more room for new comb in the problem hive but there is plenty of empty comb for brood and stores. They have a medium full of honey and I think that should pretty much get them through the winter. IIRC, 60 lbs is what they should need and by my best guess, a medium full of honey weighs that much. If I'm off on that, I welcome the correction. Oct 17 is our first frost prediction.

And...would syrup be fed to the larvae? If so, what concentration would bee best?

[The15thMember]

And I have more questions on syrup...does it all get put into storage or is some of it used to make bee bread? And what is the connection between 1:1 syrup and making wax?

And...would syrup be fed to the larvae? If so, what concentration would bee best?

Syrup will be fed to larvae, but this hive has plenty of honey, so that's not the issue, the issue is lack of pollen, which the babies also need, and lack of nurse bees to feed them.  Bees need to have full stomachs for their wax glands to start producing wax.  So a strong flow will typically stimulate bees to draw.  I'm under the impression that a very small amount of honey/nectar/syrup is used in the production of bee bread, but really not much.  As Kathy said, drawing wax is essentially irrelevant for the time of year.  This is because it takes the bees eating 8 pounds of honey to produce 1 pound of wax, and the bees have no wish to eat up all their stores right before winter.  Bees right now, in healthy hives at least, are working on condensing the brood nest and guarding their stores and putting up the last little bits of nectar and pollen they can manage to get a hold of out and about, not on expanding the brood nest or drawing wax.       

This colony is at the point where it is essentially failing.  Combining them with either your other hive or your nuc will be the best course of action if the bee inspector gives them a clean bill of health.  If not, then he should be able to advise you on what the best next step will be for your location and climate.  I guess if you wanted to, you could try to bolster them with some donated pollen/pollen patty and/or some workers from another colony, but it may be throwing good money after bad at this point.  If it was me, I'd just wait for the bee inspector.     
 

In other news, I started doing my fall brood nest inspections today.  Got one colony down from 4 boxes to 3, and was halfway through another colony when it started to thunder and get dark and windy.  I knew rain was coming, so I was rushing to get the hive closed up, and I lifted a box that was a little too heavy a little too quickly and injured my back.    Thankfully the rain held off long enough for me to gingerly walk up to the house and get someone to close up the hive for me.  And thankfully my sister inspected with me my whole first season of beekeeping and helps me anytime there is a swarm, so she was able to get them closed up with no stings, even though the bees were pretty irritated that the roof was off and it was starting to sprinkle.     

[Terri Yaki]

Having sprained my back several times at work in the freight industry, I have an idea on how bad it can be and here's hoping yours won't be too bad. You can't over stress the importance of safe lifting and caring for your back. You do not get a re-do on that. I'm not a doctor so I won't advise you on what I would do right now but if you're not crippled up in the morning, you should be in the clear.

[Kathyp]

Back thing is a bummer.  At least you were doing something not stupid.  I tore mine up when I bent over and picked up the container of laundry detergent.  Took weeks to heal up and I sure didn't want anyone to know how it happened   

Good for you teaching your sister. 

[The15thMember]

Having sprained my back several times at work in the freight industry, I have an idea on how bad it can be and here's hoping yours won't be too bad. You can't over stress the importance of safe lifting and caring for your back. You do not get a re-do on that. I'm not a doctor so I won't advise you on what I would do right now but if you're not crippled up in the morning, you should be in the clear.

Yeah, this is the second time I've injured my back lifting boxes, and I'm going to try and make sure it's my last.  I'm going to rededicate myself to working out in the mornings, and in the future, I'm just going pull some frames out of a heavy box so I can lift it safely.  It seems like a hassle and a waste of time, but it's way better than getting hurt.  Thankfully my back doesn't seem too bad.  It feels pretty good if I'm standing or sitting, but getting between those positions or bending over is really painful.  I'm taking some tinctures and I've got the heating pad on it.

Back thing is a bummer.  At least you were doing something not stupid.  I tore mine up when I bent over and picked up the container of laundry detergent.  Took weeks to heal up and I sure didn't want anyone to know how it happened   

My mom has a recurring back injury, and she has hurt herself several times doing stuff like that.  She hurt her back one time just turning over in bed in a weird position.  Back security requires constant vigilance! 

Good for you teaching your sister. 

It wasn't so much teaching as that fact that it was my first year and I didn't have a mentor, so I wanted an extra set of eyes and hands, and she volunteered to help.  She could probably do an inspection herself if she had to, but she really doesn't like getting sticky or stung (although her reactions are no where near as bad as mine).  We have learned on the homestead that it's important for at least one other person to know how to care for an animal other than the typical caretaker, in case someone is sick or injured or on a trip.         

[Ben Framed]

Yeah, this is the second time I've injured my back lifting boxes, and I'm going to try and make sure it's my last.

The following topic may interest you?

Hive Lifts:

https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=53409.msg481678#msg481678

[NigelP]

and not enough workers to cover the brood.

The number of eggs a queen lays is roughly proportional to number of worker bees in a hive. She doesn't lay more than they can cope with. If your bee numbers are not sufficient for the larvae then something is killing the worker bees or not enough are making it through to emergence.

[Terri Yaki]

and not enough workers to cover the brood.

The number of eggs a queen lays is roughly proportional to number of worker bees in a hive. She doesn't lay more than they can cope with. If your bee numbers are not sufficient for the larvae then something is killing the worker bees or not enough are making it through to emergence.

It hasn't been all that long since we came out of a sweltering heat spell when no eggs were being laid. I didn't keep track of it all but that brood break probably helped get me where I am on this.

[NigelP]

If there was a brood break there should be loads of bees to cope with when she started laying again. The question is where did they go, or where did they die?

[BeeMaster2]

One house bee can cover three brood cells. During BeeFest 2023 and 2024 Michael Bush taught us to shave 1/16 inch off the sides of the frames which enables you to put an extra frame in the brood boxes. This allows one bee to cover 6 cells. This is great for fast build up.
If the bees don?t have food, either nectar or pollen or both, they will remove/eat the eggs and wet larvae.
Jim Altmiller

[Terri Yaki]

Thanks, Jim, I suspected that there would be a way for them to solve their problem if it is just low numbers. This morning as I sat out by the hives, which I usually do in the morning to observe them, I saw quite a few bees on the ground in front of the hive in question that looked like they were dying. I have not seen this before and the other two hives did not have this issue. They are flying but not bringing much pollen in. The swarm hive, OTOH, is working up a storm with lots of activity and a good percentage of the foragers bringing pollen in.

[Bill Murray]

there are not enough to tend brood.

If there was a brood break there should be loads of bees to cope with when she started laying again.

Nigel, that is only assuming there were plenty of bees there at the brood-break. Or maybe that was the reason for it.

The number of eggs a queen lays is roughly proportional to number of worker bees in a hive. She doesn't lay more than they can cope with.

Also I have them all the time during pollen dearth cannibalize huge amounts of eggs and quit tending brood. Normally though if there are enough bees they usually haul them if they are hygienic enough, to want to.

Terri
Go here it will give you a good estimate of your bees on a frame. http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/beesest.html

[.30WCF]

Was shooting my bow this morning and saw these guys again. They have been pretty persistent latley.

https://youtu.be/045KDq6Ier4?feature=shared


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Terri Yaki]

Yellow jackets?