Author Topic: One Hive Failing (Read 11094 times)

tbonekel · « **on:** March 23, 2014, 05:31:57 pm »

I have one hive that is just not performing the way I think it should. It has all the resources: honey, pollen and brood but not very much of any. I haven't seen the queen, but have seen eggs. My question about this hive is timing. I don't want to replace her yet and I really don't want to order a new queen. I want them to grow their own but not from that stock. What I was thinking is pinching her and adding a frame of eggs and brood from another stronger hive. If I do that, what might be the time frame? I would like to wait a while and see if she maybe will perform better, but I doubt it. I do have one hive that I was thinking of splitting, but I don't plan on doing that for another month or maybe two. Instead of splitting, I could just take the frame from that one and put it in the weak one.

Jen · « **Reply #1 on:** March 23, 2014, 05:36:13 pm »

Hey tbone- maybe there is something else to concider with your slow hive, like maybe mites?

tbonekel · « **Reply #2 on:** March 23, 2014, 05:58:19 pm »

Didn't think about that and didn't really look for evidence of that on the last inspection. I will keep that in consideration the next time I check. Thanks!

Jen · « **Reply #3 on:** March 23, 2014, 06:08:50 pm »

Do you have a piece of WHITE sheet plastic, like real estate sign plastic, that you can smear with Crisco shortening, or vaseline? Then slide it carefully and slowly onto the floor of the bottom board, leave for a 3-4 days, then carefully pull it out and count how many mites you have on it.

If you have a screen bottom board, just slide the plasic board underneath it.

Do it in the late evening, or just dark when all the bees are in and settling down.

You can also open up some drone brood and check for mites.

If you find mites either way, Formic Acid Quik Strips work wonders on killing all of the mites even in the capped brood. They are really easy to use as well. Lots of Youtube stuff on Formic Acid Quik Strips.

Woody Roberts · « **Reply #4 on:** March 23, 2014, 07:06:36 pm »

For whatever reason I've had hives that just couldn't seem to get it together no matter what I did. I used to just keep giving them frames of brood. Any more I have a different approach.

I combine them with another hive and start a strong nuc in their equipment. I can usually count on these to do good.

Another option. Kill the queen, take all open brood and put it in a different hive. The hive you want to breed from would be fine. Take however many frames of open brood and eggs from your breeder hive and put in your weak hive. An extra or two won't hurt.

Just make sure the only eggs/ larva they have is from the queen you want to breed from.

Riverrat · « **Reply #5 on:** March 23, 2014, 07:10:32 pm »

Patience Grasshopper Patience.

Its still early I wouldn't send the queen to the gallows just yet. Some bees are slow to kick in on the brood rearing but when they do they explode. You might try to put on a feeder of 1:1 syrup to see if you can get her to kick in

iddee · « **Reply #6 on:** March 23, 2014, 07:31:55 pm »

If you want to bide time AND give her a chance, about noon, swap places with her hive and a strong hive. The foragers from the strong hive will join her and "maybe" give her the extra bees she needs to cover. She will not lay more eggs than she has bees to cover.

Check them in 2 weeks and make your decision then.

Jen · « **Reply #7 on:** March 23, 2014, 08:32:03 pm »

I feel it's early in the year as well, I like Riverrat and Iddee's suggestions ~

apisbees · « **Reply #8 on:** March 24, 2014, 04:15:38 am »

As alluded to by others, Knowing the race and origins of the queen could explain the difference in build up. If one was Carniolan and the other Italian, at this time of year what you are witnessing would be expected.

tecumseh · « **Reply #9 on:** March 24, 2014, 07:06:28 am »

at this point in the season unless you can point to starvation or lack of pollen (ie any critical input) then I would do exactly as you have first suggested < actually I would typically either rear a queen cell or purchase a mated queen but you option is also something to consider if you did not want to do one of these two options.

tbonekel · « **Reply #10 on:** March 24, 2014, 12:59:01 pm »

I'm going to give her some time. This hive as well as the others, was a swarm so I have no idea how old she is. She may be almost done. If that's the case, I guess it's possible for her to have good genes but possibly running out of eggs. Maybe they will try to supersede at a point. I'm trying to grow my apiary, but I'm really not in a big hurry so it will be interesting to see what happens. Thanks for everyone's input.

tbonekel · « **Reply #11 on:** April 04, 2014, 06:13:23 pm »

Okay, this is an update on the hive that I thought was failing. It is still not doing very good. It's a single deep and there are probably 200 or less capped cells. Some uncapped cells with small larvae in the bottom but I could find no eggs. I did, however, see this.

And this:

These two images were on separate frames. I looked really hard and didn't see a queen anywhere, but it appears that a queen may have hatched. When there are queen cells like this in the middle of a frame, doesn't that likely mean emergency? I can't remember. This is the same hive that has not had a productive queen at all. I'm hoping that she is or will be somewhere soon. I'm going to check in a week and hopefully, I will see some eggs. If she needs to mate, I know that won't be a problem. I have one hive that's a dad gum bee YMCA. Those guys are all over the place!

One thing I need to add to this, this hive has some tiny bees in it. They are really small. Just sayin'.

Woody Roberts · « **Reply #12 on:** April 04, 2014, 10:37:13 pm »

I believe what we're looking at here is supersedure. I believe the first picture is the best looking cell. It doesn't appear to me to have hatched yet.

The second pic. The open cells look like queen cups to me. The capped cells look awful small to me. The pic on my I pad is not as big as on a computer though so I might be missing something.

If what I saw was what I think I saw I would rate this hives chances at very good.

Once she gets mated and starts laying if she doesn't have at least 4 frames of brood I believe I'd give her another if I could spare it.
Young queens can poop out a lot of eggs if they have the bees to cover them.

I meant to say 4 frames of bees not brood.

Woody Roberts · « **Reply #13 on:** April 06, 2014, 12:44:52 pm »

As we don't know when that cell was capped we know it will be hatched by 4-10 or 11 You should see eggs in a couple weeks after that.

riverbee · « **Reply #14 on:** April 06, 2014, 08:08:05 pm »

" I looked really hard and didn't see a queen anywhere, but it appears that a queen may have hatched. When there are queen cells like this in the middle of a frame, doesn't that likely mean emergency? I can't remember. This is the same hive that has not had a productive queen at all. I'm hoping that she is or will be somewhere soon."

my personal humble opinion tb, i wouldn't mess around, and i would requeen that hive with a mated queen. the longer you wait, the more problems you will develop, it's not worth it.

tbonekel · « **Reply #15 on:** April 07, 2014, 07:53:17 am »

Okay, but give me some possible problems I might have. I'm not really counting on this hive to do much this season and don't mind experimenting. I'm trying to learn as much as I can. Now if you are saying this could have some adverse effect on my other hives, then that's a different story.

riverbee · « **Reply #16 on:** April 07, 2014, 10:58:05 am »

the only adverse affect on other hives would be if at some point later on you decided to combine this failing hive with another, the older bees get, the more fussy they are, or if this hive was so weak that robbing would occur.

it's hard to say if this is supercedure or emergency. my concern would be the age of the worker larvae that was chosen to become a queen. might produce a dud, and might not. so as time ticks away, waiting for the new queen to emerge, mate, and lay eggs, your population dwindles, the hive becomes weaker. so you would need to keep an eye on this so your hive doesn't become queenless. also, the older bees get, they are more difficult to requeen.

as far as the 'tiny bees' in this hive, are they stunted?

good article on queen cells here tb:
Queen Cell Identification

efmesch · « **Reply #17 on:** April 07, 2014, 11:05:38 am »

The QC in the first picture doesn't look very promising, The open cells in the second picture, like Tbone said, are merely queen cups--not opened queen cells.
There are several possible moves you could make, and I won't make any suggestions---you've already heard several.
However, if you want to STRENGTHEN the hive, don't do it with OPEN brood or eggs. They will tax the abilities of the hive to collect anything much, demanding care from the few bees you have. . Strengthen either by shaking-in young bees or with closed brood, about to emerge. They should give a fast power lift to the hive without placing a heavy demand on the resources of an already weak hive.

tbonekel · « **Reply #18 on:** April 07, 2014, 06:12:53 pm »

I checked again, 3 days later and nothing has changed. The single QC that I'm hoping is the one, is still capped. So if it was capped 3 days ago, that means she could emerge anytime from now to Wednesday, right? This hive is a single deep and Friday I placed the inner cover on, then a broadman feeder full of sugar syrup, then a deep body over that. It appears that they have not touched the feed at all. It also looks like there is a lot of fresh nectar in the comb. They have placed it somewhat haphazardly in the brood area, which I would guess would be odd if there was a queen present. Anyway, there is still capped brood. I would really like to get in this hive tomorrow to see if there are any changes. I'm wondering if I should go ahead and place this colony in a nuc. They are really only on about 3 frames right now.

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #19 on:** April 07, 2014, 06:47:13 pm »

If its warm there I don't think I'd worry about the nuc. I'd do as Efmesch said. Give them some strength and a little time. Must be in the 90's in Texas by now right??