Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: Jen on May 06, 2022, 02:30:34 pm
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This season I have taken over the care of two hives in town. When I walked up to one of the hives I saw many drones at the entrance. Uh Oh.... And yes the hive is queenless, no capped brood/larvae/eggs. There are plenty of bees to save the hive, and the present bees have not turned into laying workers yet.
I want to requeen pronto, but need to get rid of hundreds of drones.
How do I get rid of all the drone, or most anyway?
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Dress like a queen and run past the hive. ;D
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Place a frame of open brood in it and requeen. The workers will do the rest.
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:laugh: Zweefer! I Don't Have Any Pheromone Anymore! :laugh:
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Iddee "Place a frame of open brood in it and requeen. The workers will do the rest."
Not capped brood... But open brood? What would that do? Would the bees cannibalize that open brood?
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I’m guessing open brood means the need for supplies. Supplies they can no longer afford to give to mooching drones.
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Another guess. I think open brood would have more brood pheromone than capped.
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Curious Jen how you know they don't have laying workers.
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Hi Rast, I'm a very thorough inspector, I can spot an egg a mile away. On a sunny day, after examining every single frame in a 3 high box, there are no eggs.
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Zweefer "I’m guessing open brood means the need for supplies. Supplies they can no longer afford to give to mooching drones."
Interesting. This hive is void of food. Feeding w/pollen patty just to keep the bees going until I get a queen in there. The open brood was something I haven't heard of before. Cool Idea!
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Iddee "Another guess. I think open brood would have more brood pheromone than capped."
I like your guess, guesses in beekeeping is called intuition :)
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Iddee when you say 'Let the workers do the rest'
To that: this means that the bees will kill off the excess drones. That is A Lot of stinkin' drones, and will take too much time while the drones are still being fed by the bees, a good many of them anyway.
I think this is my plan: take each frame, several at a time, out into the field and bang the bees and drones off of the frames. Remember that the frames are void of any brood/larvae/eggs. Return the frames to the hive. The bees will return to the hive quicker than the drones, giving me time to pinch the excess drones.
Then reduce the hive to 2 boxes. Insert a frame of open brood or as close to that as I can find. Intro a queen.
What do ya think?
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"The bees will return to the hive quicker than the drones,""
What makes you think that?
Why do you think the workers will feed the drones once they know they are queenrite? They won't need them any more and will boot them.
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Good morning Iddee, I've seen this process happen about 5 years ago. I watched the whole event of banging the bees off of the frames. The bees lifted up more readily than the drones and flew back to the hive, the drones layed around, walked in the grass for a bit before fly off.
I think, and I usually get into trouble when I start to think :)... that the drones are heavier and more lazy than the worker bees, takes them longer to helicopter back to the hive. Which would give me time to dispatch a lot of the drones.
It makes sense to me.
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To each his own.
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Why do you think the workers will feed the drones once they know they are queenrite? They won't need them any more and will boot them.
If you get this colony queen right and there isn't any food stores, I agree with iddee! We need a big boot emoji!
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The open brood will help suppress laying workers and get them back on track. EGGS if your going to let them raise a queen or just get a queen to introduce.
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Hi Lazy, I am a fan of letting bees make their own queens. But in this case I'm going to requeen prob next weekendor sooner if it isn't still snowing... for cryin out loud. There is virtually no capped brood/larvae/eggs. In upper northern CA, the weather is getting so extreme that it takes up to 6 weeks to get a queen mated and laying. So new queen for sure.
Think I'll put in a frame of open brood and an additional frame of capped brood if the other hive can afford it. The capped brood would be 6,000 more bees pronto.
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Now that would be a definite boost if it's available.
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Praying, hoping, meditating, oooming, drumming, singing to the sun ;)
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In your Jammies? ;D
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:D :laugh: :D There is no other way Lazy! Still the best way to catch swarms as well :D :laugh:
Here ya go, barefoot beekeeping ;)
(https://i.ibb.co/nLd5gNP/IMG-0721.jpg) (https://ibb.co/nLd5gNP)
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LOL!!! YAY! Wow your braver than i am.... no barefoot for me.... I might go shirtless or in shorts but def not barefoot!
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My most important bee ware is my veil. Since about 10 years or so ago I got stung inside my right nostril, and Every single year since I always get stung inside my right nostril which ensues in copious amounts of tears, snot, and saliva. At least my face doesn't swell up anymore :D
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Wow, that makes my eyes water just thinking about it.....
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And then I have to go into the house, get the tweezers, then with the right index finger and thumb.. turn my right nostril inside out and pluck out the stinger... nose still running...
Wanna Play Gross Out?? :laugh:
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Whatever the prize is, you win!
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What Rast said!!!
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:D