Author Topic: First Hive Inspection 2015 (Read 8005 times)

CpnObvious · « **on:** April 13, 2015, 08:39:29 am »

I opened hive P1 yesterday, will be check in on hive OR1 today! Will update later with OR1 details.

P1_041215: This went fairly well, though the ladies weren't too happy with me. Lots of young bees, I was surprised by this. Saw brood in multiple stages: eggs, capped, etc, but didn't really see any larva. Did she lay some during the warm week we had and then took some time off? ... I didn't go through every frame, but got an overall good feel for what is going on. I'm pretty sure I need to treat for tracheal mites. Some some K-wing in some of the older bees. Going to pick up some menthol oil today and make grease/sugar patties, unless someone here can offer a better suggestion? I did drop a frame of bees. Followed it up with: "...and that's how you kill a queen." Well, I picked the frame up. Sure as heck, wasn't she on that frame. UGH! But she was OK and wandering around looking for empty cells to lay in. The other thing I'm uncertain of: If you look at the second picture I'm posting here and zoom your browser all the way in, you can see white stuff in the honey/nectar/syrup in the cells. The white stuff was very smooth and creamy. It wasn't in any cells that didn't have honey/nectar/syrup in it, but I have no idea what it is. Thoughts?

iddee · « **Reply #1 on:** April 13, 2015, 09:08:55 am »

Crystallized honey or sugar, and it looks like the only food they have left. If it is, you need to feed heavily.

CpnObvious · « **Reply #2 on:** April 13, 2015, 09:17:45 am »

I was wondering if that's what it was. They have about a frame's-worth of capped honey in the hive, plus nectar/syrup, and I gave them a frame nearly filled with capped honey and open nectar/syrup that I had in the freezer (took it out to acclimate last week). I am feeding pollen substitute, winter patty, and will be making grease patties and syrup tonight or tomorrow.

~~Additional question: If I buy essential oil for the menthol patties... Which mint do I buy?

Jen · « **Reply #3 on:** April 13, 2015, 11:47:41 am »

This is exciting Cpn

listening to you observe and learn reminds me of me when I was captured by every essence of the hive. Hive looks great, and it's nice that your queen is a different shade from your bees

iddee · « **Reply #4 on:** April 13, 2015, 03:26:25 pm »

I don't use oils. I use Crisco.

CpnObvious · « **Reply #5 on:** April 14, 2015, 09:17:21 am »

041315 - Hive OR1: I checked on OR1 yesterday. They were less than pleased about my presence! LOTS of bees! They had larva in all stages, but no eggs??? I found the queen and watched walk around on a frame for about 5-8 minutes. She was wandering all over the place looking for a place to lay, but she never did. I don't know what to make of that. I found it very strange. There were plenty of bees around her. There were even a couple that went up to her backside almost seemingly trying to convince her or stimulate her to lay. She's very large and plump. I was all by my lonesome, so I couldn't get my phone out to record, otherwise I would have. They had plenty of honey left from last year, though I gave them a bit more. I traded an empty of theirs for a 70% frame of honey. They've taken all the pollen substitute I had given them (about 2/3-cup), their winter patty is gone. I have syrup to bring them today.

I'm also trying an experiment with them: Last year I had a Duragilt foundation that they stripped the wax off one side in a section about 2"x 5". As most of you know, once they strip Duragilt, they won't build on it. This caused much wonky comb last year. Unfortunately, when I pulled the frame out at the end of the year it was filled with capped honey (I'm guessing mostly syrup honey, not nectar). The experiment: I cut out that section of stripped foundation to see if they'd build comb to fill in the missing section. I've often wondered if this would work as a quick field fix. I know several of you would just say to pull the frame and swap the foundation... but if it's full of eggs or brood, I just don't think I could justify it! I'm curious if they'll draw comb in the void, effectively repairing it. The other side of the piece I cut out was all capped honey. I placed that in the top for them to pillage. I have an empty super on top now to give space while I feed them.

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #6 on:** April 14, 2015, 09:39:10 am »

Yes they will fix it once the smooth plastic is cut out. You usually have to ruin the drawn part on the other side of the plastic but its worth the fix.. I still have a few pieces just like that bouncing around in my hives. I have tried to stay away from the Duragilt, but it seems that whenever I decide I dont want any more of something.. a deal that cant be passed up arrives... and it consists of entirely the stuff I wanted to get rid of.. usually, its Duragilt in DEEPS!!

CpnObvious · « **Reply #7 on:** April 14, 2015, 11:02:23 am »

Scott,
It was you that pointed out the shortcomings of Duragilt to me last year. Low-and-behold, what you told me about is what I later saw. I won't pull it from the hives as long as it's good. I also have another 10 or so sheets of it brand new. The new sheets will be put in bait hives. I now have a 25# box of Wired Foundation With Hooks from Mann Lake (http://www.mannlakeltd.com/beekeeping-supplies/product/FN-237.html). This will last me a bit... I hope.

On another note: Any thoughts why my queen WAS laying, but now doesn't appear to be?

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #8 on:** April 14, 2015, 08:43:16 pm »

It is really hard to tell why she is not laying at the moment... It takes bees to cover brood.. so the more bees you have the more brood you can have...Hopefully she has held up waiting for brood to emerge and she will then refill those cells and expand in other areas as well.. maybe you have no flow? If there was something wrong with the queen, IE she wasnt well mated she would be laying drone eggs, so the NOT laying is usually voluntary and for a reason...

rwlaw · « **Reply #9 on:** April 15, 2015, 08:50:06 am »

They probably had a spurt of laying with the supplements and then shut down once they ran out. I learned the hard way to keep my sugar blocks on in till the dandions bloom.
Another trick is to scrape off some cappings on a honey frame and place it next to the brood nest. Gotta be careful of robbing if it's a weaker hive tho.

riverbee · « **Reply #10 on:** April 15, 2015, 10:19:55 am »

"Any thoughts why my queen WAS laying, but now doesn't appear to be?"

capn, do you have syrup on yet? go back to iddee's post in response to your posted pix:

"Crystallized honey or sugar, and it looks like the only food they have left. If it is, you need to feed heavily."

CpnObvious · « **Reply #11 on:** June 27, 2015, 02:26:53 pm »

So here's my latest update on everything and I could also use a little advice (surprise, surprise)...

P1 (Donor Hive): This hive was doing EXCEPTIONALLY well earlier in the year, so I made a split, leaving the queen in it, taking a bunch of capped queen cells into the split (OR2). The a few weeks later it was still just absolutely exploding, so I made another split taking the queen with it (P3), leaving plenty of capped queen cells. This hive is continuing to bring in plenty of pollen and nectar. There are 5 hatched queen cells, 4 or 5 capped queen cells, no queen. I'm not sure what to think or do about this? Why would so many have hatched and not come back? I can think of many reason (they killed each other, were eaten during mating flight, bad weather kept them from returning, etc). At what point do I panic and buy a queen?

P2: New package this year. Doing great all around.

P3: Second split from the donor hive. Pulling in plenty of pollen and nectar. Will be adding a second deep brood box today. This one has the queen and is doing great.

P4: I recently acquired an active hive. I moved it last Sunday, inspected it for the first time yesterday. I had peaked in before moving to make sure nothing was horrendous, but didn't have any equipment with me, so couldn't really get in there. This is a Russian hive. It is made up of 4 mediums. It's a honey house. Unfortunately... There is no queen, no eggs, no larva, no capped brood... NOTHING to keep them going. I'm working on trying to find a queen.

OR1: This is a survivor hive from last year. I've had queen issues with it, but replaced the queen a couple of weeks ago. Did the first inspection since releasing the new queen today. The new queen is definitely doing her job. My concern with this hive is that they still aren't drawing comb. I can't really say there's a NEED for it... but they really haven't drawn anything new this year. MAYBE the equivalent of slightly less than one side of foundation, in total... IF even that much.

OR2: This is the first split from the donor hive. There are 2 or 3 hatched queen cells and 9 or 10 capped queen cells... but no queen or signs of one. They are certainly doing their job at collecting nectar and pollen. My concerns are the same as they were with hive P1 in regards to the queen... At what point do I start to worry?

Thank you everyone!!!

iddee · « **Reply #12 on:** June 27, 2015, 03:37:37 pm »

""At what point do I start to worry?""

About the fifteenth of July.

CpnObvious · « **Reply #13 on:** June 27, 2015, 06:43:20 pm »

Quote from: iddee on June 27, 2015, 03:37:37 pm

""At what point do I start to worry?""

About the fifteenth of July.

WOW! OK!

I don't suppose you have an estimated time with that, do you??

iddee · « **Reply #14 on:** June 27, 2015, 07:18:38 pm »

1400 hours..

CpnObvious · « **Reply #15 on:** July 04, 2015, 08:15:17 pm »

P4: so here's a bit of confusion... As reported above, this Russian hive very clearly had no queen. No signs of anything at all... Managed to get a brandy-new Carni queen on Monday and she was placed into the hive by my better half (I've been away) in her cage. She was not provided with any attending bees. I returned today and went to open the candy end cork... But, I was a bit nervous when she didn't appear to have any workers interested in her and he cage. I pulled a few frames out and found one that had a brood patch about the size of a softball on both sides of it. This same frame had 2 capped emergency queen cells, 1 or 2 uncapped queen cells with royal jelly in them, and a couple swarm cells at the bottom of the frame.

This makes absolutely no sense... I went through more frames and found absolutely no signs of a queen anywhere.

Needless to say, I didn't remove the cork.

What do I do?

Thank you everyone!

efmesch · « **Reply #16 on:** July 05, 2015, 06:57:40 am »

I'm going to take a dangerous step out on a long springboard with what I'm about to say. Take it anyway you wish, but it's said in good faith.
I think that what hides behind Iddee's answer is his not saying that you are too impatient with your P4 hive.

Sometimes, too many examinations and "messing around" inside the hive, (especially one that hasn't settled down into a normal pattern of activity and internal organization) is detrimental to the bees and to their beekeeper. If I followed you correctly, there are a lot of different happenings going on at the same time in this hive: brood and queen rearing, queen introduction. Maybe, at some point you "rolled" your queen and that set things that were starting to get in track off track. If there is a queen in the hive, there will be a fight to the finish between her and her potential contenders. All this takes time to sort itself out.

I would recommend removing the queen you've been trying to introduce, and let the bees finish rasing their own queen. The colony doesn't sound strong enough to pose a real threat of swarming, so the hive will probably select, by natural methods (first queen to emerge deposes potential competitors), one queen and she will mate and start laying. If your patience holds out, things should settle down and work themselves out.

As to the caged queen, put her (in the cage) in a nuc with a small collection of bees to take care of her till things have sorted out and you know for sure whether she is needed or not.

I might have misunderstood all the goings on with P4, so my advice might be off track. But I still advise you be patient with them. Don't open again before the 15th (except to remove the caged queen).

CpnObvious · « **Reply #17 on:** July 12, 2015, 01:03:09 am »

Thank you all for your advise and suggestion, as always! I'd like to say that everything has been a success! I now have 6 queen-right hives!

We're going to start one more experiment tomorrow morning:

P1 (the original donor hive) now has a HUGE queen laying her little heart away! I actually think we saw one more brandy-new queen in there... But not really sure if that's truly what she was. However, there are still two more queen cells that are probably going to ?hatch? (If that's the right word) in the next couple of days. Hive OR2 have a couple of queens cells also that should be nearing their readiness. Tomorrow morning we are going to take those two frames, along with brood/honey/pollen frames and nurse bees from hive OR1 and combine them all into a 4-frame nuc. I guess we're aiming for 7 hives this year?

What have we gotten ourselves into. LOL

efmesch · « **Reply #18 on:** July 12, 2015, 02:08:05 am »

CpnObvious:....We're going to start one more experiment tomorrow morning:

AAhhh----A true beekeeper gets to work with inspiration. Carry on

badgerbeekernube66 · « **Reply #19 on:** July 12, 2015, 11:17:40 am »

Don't forget about perspiration!