Author Topic: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours  (Read 10766 times)

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Gypsi

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Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« on: June 03, 2014, 11:09:58 pm »
I have to be ready to hop on a plane at 4:30 tomorrow, so I don't have much time.

Hive 3 had a new queen on May 15th, I made sure she was released, she wasn't but her servants were all dead on May 18th, so I opened up her sugar cap as there wasn't another queen sitting perched waiting to attack (never know with splits) and the workers looked friendly. She seems to have lived long enough to lay some worker brood which is still capped, some drone brood, and 5 queen eggs, one of which has opened its cap and the other 4 are still capped. Figure the new queen is out on a mating flight, considering setting up 2 mating nucs and relieving hive population from hive 1, the hot one, and hive 2, the stable 1 with the established productive queen. If the queen come backs mated they will kill the queen cells, right?

What do I have to put in a mating nuc?  My guess was 2 frames of brood, 2 frames of food, covered with nurse bees and 2 queen cells.

Offline LazyBkpr

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2014, 12:12:09 am »
 What do I have to put in a mating nuc?  My guess was 2 frames of brood, 2 frames of food, covered with nurse bees and 2 queen cells.


Depends on how many queens you want. I use one cell in a mating nuc and recombine it if the queen does not make it.. Does not emerge or gets devoured while on the mating flight etc..   I do two when I find queen cells and intend to leave/use them to re queen a hive, but yes.
 A GOOD frame of brood, a frame of nectar/pollen and an extra shake of bees, the queen cell high on the brood frame with brood all around it. When that frame of brood emerges there will suddenly be a lot of bees in a little mating nuc, so not sure I would do two frames of brood. Maybe someone that has done it will pipe in before your deadline.
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Offline pistolpete

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2014, 01:18:26 am »
I hate to tell you, but the first thing a new queen does is run around and sting all the unhatched ones, then she hangs around the hive for a few days, getting strong, then she goes on mating flights.  Chances are really good that all those other cells are already dead and have just not been removed by the workers.    My advice: do nothing.  Check the hive for eggs in 10 days to two weeks.
My advice: worth price charged :)

Offline Jen

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2014, 02:00:43 am »
Gypsi, I think all the advice here is good. But, I'm leaning with Pete, don't worry about the bees, they'll figure it out.

When in doubt ~ do nothing

Have a good trip  ;) 8)
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Gypsi

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2014, 08:58:08 am »
well I thank you for your advice and that is what I'm going to do. Nothing.  I have enough to do today to get ready and get my helper set up to handle the critters while I am gone.

Gypsi

Offline riverbee

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2014, 04:30:57 pm »
gypsi,

sorry i didn't see this, sort of crazy for me lately........an update on your nuc?
 
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Gypsi

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #6 on: June 09, 2014, 02:37:03 pm »
Nope RB.

Took a plane to see a relative, ended up discovering he was gravely ill and with his wife, put him in hospital, left the bees to their own devices.  It is cloudy and rainy today, may check for brood tomorrow.

Thank you for asking

Gypsi

Offline Jen

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #7 on: June 09, 2014, 02:56:24 pm »
Keep us posted Gypsi, I always like to hear about when 'we do nothing' and find out that all worked out just fine. Sending you good mojo for you and your bees  ;) 8)
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Gypsi

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #8 on: June 09, 2014, 03:00:03 pm »
Jen, I will. but I have to admit the bees are pulling about 4th place at the moment. Admitted my uncle very advanced COPD, he is on oxygen sedated had zero infections when admitted, and this morning my aunt visited and they think he has MRSA. Which he must have caught in this hospital. Can't find a patient advocate, hard to deal with Nevada from Texas, but my aunt got a ride into Vegas only to not find anyone to talk to.

Offline Jen

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #9 on: June 09, 2014, 03:04:07 pm »
Ooooh Bummer ~ what is copd and mrsa?
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Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #10 on: June 09, 2014, 06:26:49 pm »
COPD = Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

MRSA = Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus


I've had experience in the family with both....and both are very bad ailmentss. 

Ed

Offline riverbee

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #11 on: June 09, 2014, 07:03:38 pm »
"Nope RB.
Took a plane to see a relative, ended up discovering he was gravely ill and with his wife, put him in hospital, left the bees to their own devices.  It is cloudy and rainy today, may check for brood tomorrow.
Thank you for asking"


gypsi, you are welcome and i have missed your presence on the forum.  we are a 'family' here, and no matter what happens we all  care about what's going on, not just with our bees but our personal struggles.  i know i do.  family first gypsi, the bees, they'll be alright girl, you just hang in there, take care of yourself.  sorry to hear about your aunt and uncle. my thoughts, prayers and well wishes to you and your family. we are here for you! ;)
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Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #12 on: June 09, 2014, 07:58:56 pm »
Jen, I will. but I have to admit the bees are pulling about 4th place at the moment. Admitted my uncle very advanced COPD, he is on oxygen sedated had zero infections when admitted, and this morning my aunt visited and they think he has MRSA. Which he must have caught in this hospital. Can't find a patient advocate, hard to deal with Nevada from Texas, but my aunt got a ride into Vegas only to not find anyone to talk to.
Gypsi, my prayers, as is my heart, are with you and your family.  Take care of yourself otherwise you're no good to others who need your care.  The bees know what to do, they will be bees.

Ed

Offline rcannon

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #13 on: June 09, 2014, 08:44:55 pm »
You're doing the right thing, Gypsi. Take care of the priorities and the bees will take care of themselves, as they have forever.
Best wishes and prayers sent for your family.

Gypsi

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #14 on: June 11, 2014, 05:32:42 pm »
Well I went through my neighbor's hive (which lost a 6 lb swarm) and all 3 of my remaining ones. Sold the one I brought back from arlington Monday night.

I have one queen, the hot hive I requeened and squashed the old hot queen on the cage actually took. Only went through the medium super on top, found half a frame of eggs in old drone brood comb, uncapped brood and purple eye brood apparently being capped in 2 more frames.

The split I made same day (May 18th) did not take, she laid a half a frame of brood, 4 or 5 queen cells and I guess died or the bees killed her.   Bottom box is full of nectar and honey, and young bees, no laying worker yet

The old hive 1, with my old vsh queen apparently swarmed too, 2 or 3 full size queen cups one looks like queen chewed her way out. this hive looked ok when I last looked. Bottom box being backfilled with nectar and honey, no laying worker.

I intended to go down to 2 hives, sell 2 more, but without queens these are not real hives. I could honey harvest and combine remaining bees with my one good hive? Or buy some queens? open to suggestion.

Uncle is stable, still in hospital on oxygen. Chain Smoking-in-house aunt was diagnosed with emphysema yesterday. Her kids are now in charge of getting mom to quit smoking, but I call once in the evening each day and check on things and provide moral support. I quit 2 years ago...


Offline riverbee

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #15 on: June 12, 2014, 12:20:42 pm »
gypsi, do you have a queen in hive #1 (the vsh one you think swarmed)? if you want only two hives, and there is a queen in that one, maybe combine the other two and buy a queen?

thanks for the update! congrats on quitting the smoking. about your aunt, she probably won't quit at this point, but maybe. hard thing to get someone to quit even with emphysema. 
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Gypsi

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #16 on: June 12, 2014, 09:34:03 pm »
Only hive 3 has a queen. My VSH took off with half the bees, left 2 queen cups, both uncapped, one obviously by a queen, but no queen has returned.

Checking availability of a queen from BeeWeavers. if one is available for shipment before these bees die of old age, I have a choice. If none are available (and that may be the case), I'm not going with an AHB mix, I'll just go down to one hive until August or September then order a queen and do a split. i think.  Tecumseh did you read this thread?

Gypsi

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #17 on: June 14, 2014, 10:04:07 pm »
Hive 3 still only hive with queen. Robbed 10 deep frames, put 10 medium frames of honey on top of hive 3 over a newspaper and dumped 2 hives worth of bees on top. The little split had 3 times as many bees as the original hive I split it from, so that new queen had laid some before they killed her or she died, but I dumped them all in over the newspaper together and sprinkled some lemongrass oil on the frames to hopefully not have fighting. Going to learn to use a crank extractor, some of this is nectar but I can manually evaporate. The hive with nectar did not have enough bees to get it dried and capped anymore

Gypsi

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #18 on: June 17, 2014, 10:28:04 pm »
And now, 2 days later, or is it 3, guess it is 3, there was a clump of bees on the loose empty super frames next to hive 3 this morning. I picked up a couple of frames and shook them into the deep next to hive 3, and propped a lid over it crooked. at 7:30 when I was in from work I suited up, intending to put those poor lost nurse bees in the top box of the newspaper combine on hive 3. First I picked a handful up and dropped them in that empty deep box. And I'll be darned if I didn't see a queen.  Had a thawed nuc of honey on my kitchen table, 5 deep frames of pollen stores and comb, so I changed out the 5 center frames of the deep (easier than finding a nuc bottom board and I'd already dumped the queen in)  Not nearly enough bees to make a hive, but they have a queen, and I think I have a cutout for Thursday. Or I can get a couple of frames of nurse bees from 3. 

Don't ever know quite what these ladies will do. My neighbor's queen came back and was under his hive in a clump of bees. I dropped her in on Sunday the 8th, there were uncapped larva on Sunday the 15th. He's not home to tend it and I can't keep up with it easily in this heat so I think he is going to sell it tomorrow.

The heat and the bee suit are part of the unhappy equation, still the sight of a queen takes my breath away.

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Re: Bees made queen cells. Help! I have 12 hours
« Reply #19 on: June 18, 2014, 12:54:23 am »
thanks for the update gypsi, if i missed it sorry, how much brood? enough nurse bees to cover, i think you were concerned about this?
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