Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: neillsayers on June 21, 2019, 12:24:48 am
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Hi all,
I have a hive that is presenting me with a puzzle. What do you make of it?
Hive is 8 frame with one deep and two medium supers. All 8 of brood frames covered with bees and half of mediums. In other words, booming with bees. Last two inspections I can't find any sign of a queen, no capped or open brood. but nectar, pollen and capped honey everywhere.
Last inspection, 10 days ago, I robbed a partial frame of eggs from another hive, notched it in a few places and placed it in the center of the brood box. Checked on it yesterday and they had repaired the notches, finished drawing out the frame and filled it with nectar. Bees are very calm, not runny or irritable.
Is this simply a case of no room for her to lay with the heavy flow coming in or am I queenless?
Thanks :)
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Is it safe to assume that your area still has a nectar flow?
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Either she needs space in the brood nest, space above it won't work. Put an empty frame in the middle of the brood nest.
OR
Buy you some new glasses. :laugh:
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B13,
Not sure what they are working but they are very busy at it. :)
Thanks Iddee, I have to check the calendar, I may be overdue for a checkup. :)
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Hi Neil, I wish I had nectar flow problems :D
I'm with Iddee, except I would put 3 comb frames, checker boarded from the center out. Remove some of the nectar overload and let the queen have ample room lay. Check back in 7-10 for eggs. Then, add another brood box on top... and replace supers.
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Thanks Jen,
I'm out of drawn frames right now but I can put a medium box of new waxed frames on them. I have an extractor ordered but it won't be here for at least two weeks. The way things are looking, this ought to be a good year. :)
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Crossing my fingers for ya buddy. And I had to buy some drawn wax frames this year for the first time, she's a fellow beek and had a bunch stored from last year. $4 a frame, but I had to have them :)
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Putting empties on top will not help. She will not cross the honey cap to get to it. Pull a frame out and replace with a foundation, foundationless, or medium frame IN the broodnest. She needs space IN the brood nest now, or she will swarm.
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Thanks Iddee,
Will do in the AM :)
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Keep us posted.
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Update: Been raining steady all day, so I spent some time in the shop and cobbled a temporary deep box out of some 3/8" plywood with 8 foundationless frames with waxed starter strips.
Tomorrow morning, rain or shine, hopefully during a break in the rain, I'm gonna take 4 of the drawn frames in the brood box and checkerboard it with udrawn and add this temp box. When I went in the hive last there was two full frames of bee bread so I'll place them in the center with undrawn next to them.
I'm also gonna pull any capped honey frames and harvest them, crush and strain, and place them back in the hive.
If there is a queen, hopefully the house bees will get some comb drawn faster than they can be backfilled and she will have some room to lay.
I hope there is a queen, this is the only one of my hives that didn't cast a a swarm this spring and they are very productive. She's one I'd like to rear from.
Thank you Jen, Iddee, Mikey and B13 for the help. :)
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Sure thing Neil, sounds like a good plan ;)
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I have been in a similar situation. A strong nectar flow on and NO more drawn wax to put on! :'(
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Me too Baker, I had to buy 24 frames waxed frames from a fellow beek this year. $4 a piece.
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I managed to catch a half-hour window in the rain to get down there and add that box. I didn't take any honey frames cuz there just wasn't time. My sweet calm bees were seriously POd. That's why I hate going in a hive in bad weather. Didn't see any brood or maybe more importantly any queen cells or cups.
Part of what got me in this situation is we have a lot of financial stressors right now. I try to keep lumber and frames ready to go and I held off on expenses until July and August. The bees had different ideas. Time will tell how this little drama plays out.
I really appreciate having you kind folks as a sounding board and support team. Thanks! :)
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Neil, I had a very hard season a few years back when hubby had a couple of surgeries. Was tending to him constantly. My hives got very neglected and mites took over, deformed wing virus and all of that. It was heart breaking... However! towards the end of summer hubby got back on his feet. And I had time to heal my hives. By Golly! They made it thru the winter. I was blown away.
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Thanks Jen for the encouragement. :)
Since I posted last I have a new problem pop up.
With all this rain, the ground softened under one of the hive benches. The blocks it was resting in on one side sunk until the the whole bench with 4 hives toppled over. I happened to look out there before dark and saw it. I went out and saw most of the bees seemed to be clustered in the boxes trying to stay dry. I got a big tarp and covered them all. The rain is supposed to stop in the wee hours tomorrow am. I'll try to sort it out and hopefully the damage won't be irreparable.
I've got another site it mind that is as bad a slope. When all is settled out, I think I will move them there.
:)
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Thanks Jen for the encouragement. :)
Since I posted last I have a new problem pop up.
With all this rain, the ground softened under one of the hive benches. The blocks it was resting in on one side sunk until the the whole bench with 4 hives toppled over. I happened to look out there before dark and saw it. I went out and saw most of the bees seemed to be clustered in the boxes trying to stay dry. I got a big tarp and covered them all. The rain is supposed to stop in the wee hours tomorrow am. I'll try to sort it out and hopefully the damage won't be irreparable.
I've got another site it mind that is as bad a slope. When all is settled out, I think I will move them there.
:)
Man, when it rains, it pours.
I hope you get everything worked out with minimal problems.
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Thanks WM. Tomorrow's another day, they say. :)
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most folks just starting out always have a problem with insufficient supply of drawn comb. tossing a box of foundation on top of the hive with a honey cap below will not help in this sort of situation. in such cases I find 'under supering' to be the way to go. this of course requires more work but it is well worth the effort and really takes no more time than removing several capped frames of honey and shuffling these around. As to Nells other problem with the hive it sounds like to me the queen has been replaced but the weather is not agreeable for the new queen to mate.....
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Neil, I'm sorry to here about the toppling of your hives. Good luck! Ted
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Since I posted last I have a new problem pop up. The blocks it was resting in on one side sunk until the the whole bench with 4 hives toppled over. I happened to look out there before dark and saw it. I went out and saw most of the bees seemed to be clustered in the boxes trying to stay dry. I got a big tarp and covered them all.
:)
That's a great emergency idea! I will store that one possible future use. I have a few leaners too from all this rain.
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Oh no Neil, I hope you were able to straighten out your hives! I understand the financial expense of beekeeping, I ran out of drawn frames and deep boxes. Did not want to spend the $ and dragged my feet but
finally had to bite the bullet and spend the $. The problem with catching swarms is it means you need to provide homes for them. Good luck!
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Hi Les! -waving-
Well all the toppled hives are back together. There was a few fist-sized clumps of drowned bees but the boxes and frames weren't broken. Under the circumstances, I'd say the bees were unusually cooperative.
Holy Cow! I hit 2000 posts!
:)
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Well Iddee, you were right on as usual. The hive was queenright all along. She started laying in the new comb that was drawn, then coincidentally the flow shut off and the bees consumed most of the nectar stores leaving a lot of of brood comb. Got a light flow going now but I'm not sure what it is, probably clover. Thanks for the advice! :)
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Crossing my fingers for ya buddy. And I had to buy some drawn wax frames this year for the first time, she's a fellow beek and had a bunch stored from last year. $4 a frame, but I had to have them :)
I just saw this in my inbox from BetterBee. https://www.betterbee.com/frames/adfbcomb10-bettercomb-deep-frame.asp?utm_source=Betterbee+Contact+List&utm_campaign=1cfbd2a138-bettercomb-email-070219_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&ut (https://www.betterbee.com/frames/adfbcomb10-bettercomb-deep-frame.asp?utm_source=Betterbee+Contact+List&utm_campaign=1cfbd2a138-bettercomb-email-070219_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&ut)
$8.50 a frame. I guess if you were desperate...
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B13,
I had heard of this product recently. If, (a big if), queens take to it immediately, it'd be great for building up nuc colonies in a hurry. Would save a lot of sugar syrup during lean times but sugar is pretty cheap. Who knows, may be the next big thing. :)