Rehived absconded package, and this happened ..

[Dora]

We received 3 packages of Italian bees with queens from MountainSweetHoney.com in Georgia on Thurs, Mar 21.

We hived them the same day and put syrup on top. Hives numbered:
Hive 1. My dear hubby who is normally a slam-bang-go kind of guy shook the package altogether too gently and had trouble getting the bees in. I had trouble putting the queen cage fastened in properly with a paper clip. Long story short, the poor bees went through a lot of trauma and some of them were left outside the hive and had to find their own way in.

Hive 2. For #2, the middle hive, about 2 hours after the first package was hived and when those bees were somewhat settled, I fastened the queen cage to the middle frame of Hive 2. Then we let the bees walk into a round front entrance from the package to avoid trauma of #1. It took them a long time to make the transition.

3. A couple hours later, we repeated procedure of letting bees walk in for #3. It was also a slow process.

We put syrup on all hives in mason jars over a screened opening on the inner couple. Unfortunately the screen area is larger than the jar, and the nights were near 40F.

Overnight I remembered that the hole on the cage was not to be slanted down, so it would not be plugged by dead attendant bees. Thus on Friday (the next day) I opened the hives 1 & 2 again to pull out the queen cage, take off extra ribbon, put on rubber bands to help orient queen cage horizontally under foundationless frame. Thus more trauma for hives 1 & 2.

We already noticed on Friday that Hive #3 had much more bee activity in front than Hives 1 & 2 which seemed about equal, with maybe more bees in front of 1.

On Sunday, I cut cardboard to fit around lid of mason jars to eliminate draft through extra screen, but did not otherwise disturb hives.

On Monday, I opened all hives to check on queen cages. They were all empty.

Tuesday morning, I noticed lots of bees in front of hives 1 & 3, with very little activity in front of Hive 2. By afternoon, there seemed to be no activity in front of Hive 2, so I thought I'd better check what was going on inside: There were only 3 or 4 bees, and I thought maybe the queen was lost, and the bees had joined the other two hives. Not happy ...

That evening my daughter-in-law Rebeca happened to mention that she had almost stepped on a clump of bees on the ground by the shop. She seemed concerned about her safety, but I instantly realized those were our bees! She led her husband to the place the bees were balled up on the ground, and I got a cardboard box to scoop up as many bees as I could - which seemed to be almost all of them. I used my hands to get most of them, then used a bee brush which may not have been a good idea, then figured that plucking up the grass by hand would give me better access to the bees .. Towards the end, the bees seemed to be walking into the box which I had laid on its side for them to enter. So I thought I had the queen.

We shook the bees back into the original hive but failed to put all the foundationless frames back in. I shut the main front entrance (I thought) and left a disk entrance open to the queen excluder setting. Although I think we got most of the bees, the number of bees was considerably less than we started with originally.

The next morning (Wednesday), I took a peek underneath the inner cover, and all the bees were clustered on one wall of the box. I put the missing 4 frames back in. Come to find out, that the bottom front entrance was not completely closed and the bees could slip through a crack between the wood and the hive. (It isn't a proper entrance reducer.) I fixed it to be closed.

The bees all have a good supply of syrup.

Today, Thursday, I noticed some activity in front of Hive 2, including bees coming out and going in to the queen excluder disk. But other bees seemed to be trying to get into the bottom entrance. And it seemed like several times I saw bees fighting.

We have screened bottoms with an aluminum half-sheet pan tightly under the screen, ready for hive beetle control. It tells me where the bees are, and I pulled out the pan under hive 2 and discovered that the bees must still be clustered on that one outside wall.

Hive 1 seems to be doing great. Hive 3 seems *really* active, and it seems to have more bees than Hive 1. Hive 2 is definitely the weakest hive right now - with maybe half the bees of Hive 3.

Questions:
a. Is there any significance to bees being clustered only on the wall of the hive box??

b. Would Italian bees try to "rob" a hive that doesn't really have a store of honey? (They all have the same jars of syrup.)

Any other comments/suggestions?

[The15thMember]

b. Would Italian bees try to "rob" a hive that doesn't really have a store of honey? (They all have the same jars of syrup.)

I have local mutts, so I can't speak from experience, but I'm under the impression all bees will rob when the situation presents itself.  What you are describing sounds like it could be robbing.   

a. Is there any significance to bees being clustered only on the wall of the hive box??

In my experience, bees who are clustered are unable to work for some reason.  I agree that it sounds like the queen is probably there based on your observations.  I noticed you said all the hives have plenty of syrup, but are they actually drinking it?  Are any of the hives drawing wax yet?  40F overnight sounds like it may be too cold for them to take it, because the syrup is too viscous and/or they know it will reduce their body temperature too much.  Syrup has a pretty high heat capacity, meaning that it takes a long time for it to warm up to the ambient temperature, and if your daytime highs also aren't very warm, the syrup may never warm up enough for them to take it.  If they are unable to eat, they are unable to work, and so they have just entered conservation mode and are sitting on the wall trying not to expend energy.  If you can warm the syrup somehow it may enable them to drink it.  I did this with my first two packages during a cold snap; I just popped the jars in the microwave before I brought them out to the hives every time I fed them.

Any other comments/suggestions?

I think you probably learned this based on your experiences hiving the packages, but I just wanted to articulate something that I find helpful to remember: When you have a hive open, try to be methodical and be sure you don't miss something, rather than rush and forget something that you'll need to disturb them to fix later.  When you encounter a situation with a hive open and you aren't sure what to do, it's very easy to get overwhelmed, make a hasty decision, and then realize later with a clearer head that it wasn't the best decision.  Whenever I find this is happening to me, I like to physically take a step back from the hive, and take a moment to think through what I need to do, how I'm going to do it, and why I'm doing it, before I begin to make the motions of doing it.  The only time that speed is equally paramount is when the bees are angry, and even then being thorough is no less important.  When you are a beginner it's really hard to remember all the steps and all the facts because everything about beekeeping is really foreign, so feel free to give yourself the space to be sure you've got all the boxes checked.  The bees will not mind, and they may thank you for it.  I think you did a good job handling the curveballs thrown at you during this process, and I just wanted to pass that along to you, in case you are feeling a little overwhelmed. 

I also just wanted to mention, in case it needs to be said, that the cluster of bees on the ground was absolutely no danger to anyone.  Those bees were for all intents and purposes a swarm in that moment, and unless stepped on they wouldn't have stung anyone.  Just in case you needed some backup to convince your daughter-in-law.       

[beesnweeds]

[/b] but failed to put all the foundationless frames back in. 
all the bees were clustered on one wall of the box. 
Questions:
a. Is there any significance to bees being clustered only on the wall of the hive box??
Any other comments/suggestions?

With both screen bottom boards and foundationless frames, thats way too much empty space.  Not having any foundation there's nothing to anchor them to the hive.  Remove the screen bottom boards and add frames with foundation or add a dummy board to reduce the area.  Your colonies will struggle to get going if you dont decrease the area in the hive body.  The next time you install packages cut the screen open and dump the bees onto the queen cage or place the queen cage below the inner cover hole, add another hive body and place the hole of the package over the inner cover.  The next day take out the package cage and add feed.

[The15thMember]

With both screen bottom boards and foundationless frames, thats way too much empty space.  Not having any foundation there's nothing to anchor them to the hive.  Remove the screen bottom boards and add frames with foundation or add a dummy board to reduce the area.  Your colonies with struggle to get going if you dont decrease the area in the hive body.

That's a good point, beesnweeds, but as a new beekeeper she may not have any other equipment than what she used.  Dora, what size and how many boxes did you install them in?  I installed my first two packages on foundationless frames in 2 8-frame mediums, and I didn't have any trouble, but the conditions were such that they were able to start drawing right away.   

[Dora]

b. Would Italian bees try to "rob" a hive that doesn't really have a store of honey? (They all have the same jars of syrup.)

I have local mutts, so I can't speak from experience, but I'm under the impression all bees will rob when the situation presents itself.  What you are describing sounds like it could be robbing.   

It seemed like a possibility, but there was nothing to rob, except the syrup that was identical in all three hives! That's why I asked.

a. Is there any significance to bees being clustered only on the wall of the hive box??

In my experience, bees who are clustered are unable to work for some reason.  I agree that it sounds like the queen is probably there based on your observations.  I noticed you said all the hives have plenty of syrup, but are they actually drinking it?  Are any of the hives drawing wax yet?  40F overnight sounds like it may be too cold for them to take it, because the syrup is too viscous and/or they know it will reduce their body temperature too much.

The stronger package #3 seems to be taking syrup for sure. It seems like a compounding effect: Somehow they got off to a better start, and now they are moving ahead faster because they are taking more syrup.

The 40 F was one night. It has been getting warmer again. Tonight will go down to 47, after that it's all above 50 and up to 63, but another cold night is forecast a week from today.

I did give them warm syrup some of the time, but I don't remember whether they had warm syrup the night I rehived the package. Now that you mention it, I'll make sure that at least that weak package has warm syrup in the mornings. Daytime temp was up to 80 yesterday and 74 today.

Thank you so much for your suggestions!

Any other comments/suggestions?

I think you probably learned this based on your experiences hiving the packages, but I just wanted to articulate something that I find helpful to remember: When you have a hive open, try to be methodical and be sure you don't miss something, rather than rush and forget something that you'll need to disturb them to fix later.  When you encounter a situation with a hive open and you aren't sure what to do, it's very easy to get overwhelmed, make a hasty decision, and then realize later with a clearer head that it wasn't the best decision.  Whenever I find this is happening to me, I like to physically take a step back from the hive, and take a moment to think through what I need to do, how I'm going to do it, and why I'm doing it, before I begin to make the motions of doing it. 

Again, thanks much for the reminder!!

I also just wanted to mention, in case it needs to be said, that the cluster of bees on the ground was absolutely no danger to anyone.  Those bees were for all intents and purposes a swarm in that moment, and unless stepped on they wouldn't have stung anyone.  Just in case you needed some backup to convince your daughter-in-law.       

Yes, I know. 

[Dora]

With both screen bottom boards and foundationless frames, thats way too much empty space.  Not having any foundation there's nothing to anchor them to the hive.  Remove the screen bottom boards and add frames with foundation or add a dummy board to reduce the area.  Your colonies will struggle to get going if you dont decrease the area in the hive body.  The next time you install packages cut the screen open and dump the bees onto the queen cage or place the queen cage below the inner cover hole, add another hive body and place the hole of the package over the inner cover.  The next day take out the package cage and add feed.

Thanks for the suggestions!
The screened bottom has a pan under it, so it's 1" extra space below.
In #1 the bees were hanging on the middle frames (with starter strips) covering what would be 3 full frames and the equivalent of the inner side of the next frames.

In #3, the bees are in a similar arrangement, but covering the equivalent of 4 frames plus the inner side of the next frames. (I'm describing as though there were foundation. That's what it *looks* like.)

I hope not to have to install packages again, but if I do, I'll surely follow your suggestion!

And yes, I'll put a dummy board in #2. It will be hubby's task to build it tomorrow! The other two packages seem to be developing into a real colony. They go out and forage. Some come back with pollen.

All three packages were installed in 10-frame mediums with frames with starter strips.

But I'm wondering if I understand the space issue correctly. I thought it was mainly an issue of being able to keep warm enough, but maybe there are other reasons?

[The15thMember]

But I'm wondering if I understand the space issue correctly. I thought it was mainly an issue of being able to keep warm enough, but maybe there are other reasons

It is also about the fact that the bees have to be able to patrol and defend the space when they are not clustered. A package starts out in a state of severe disadvantage. They have no food, no comb, and many times not even a queen they know or who is even related to them. This makes them very vulnerable, and if they have too much space too soon, it can simply be overwhelming for them to try manage everything they need to do to make the space a functioning nest.

[BeeMaster2]

When bees move into A large space, they only have to protect the areas that have drawn comb. If you add a lot of drawn comb to a small hive, they have to waste too many bees to protect it and it seriously slows them down. In the wild , bees will move into a large cavity in a tree and start building from the top and work their way down as the hive grows. Here in North Florida, bees often build open air hives from tree branches or the underside of eaves. The size of the area around the hive is basically infinite. Yet they often thrive. I did an open air removal in May that according to the gate guard at the glass factory started as a swarm no bigger than my fist in March. That was a very cold spring that year and they called me because it was getting to bee bigger than a basketball.
I removed one open air hive that was on a branch high up in a tree that nobody knew was there until it got so heavy that it made the branch sag down to about 10 feet off the ground. It was three feet long and about 14? wide. Again the space it was in was basically infinite.
Jim Altmiller

[Michael Bush]

https://bushfarms.com/beespackages.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk7n1LGdhIg&list=PL0cW96U9vYJlvMDRDc83hsGpp4mWucrv-&index=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zt3vmpGuNo&list=PL0cW96U9vYJlvMDRDc83hsGpp4mWucrv-&index=2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI4gzmatkyE&list=PL0cW96U9vYJlvMDRDc83hsGpp4mWucrv-&index=3

[The15thMember]

When bees move into A large space, they only have to protect the areas that have drawn comb. If you add a lot of drawn comb to a small hive, they have to waste too many bees to protect it and it seriously slows them down.

If that's the case, then the space shouldn't be an issue for this colony, since, if I understand correctly, they have no comb at all right now.  It seems to me like what they need is to just get drawing.     

[cao]

When I installed my package bees when I started years ago, I had an issue with bees drifting to the queens with the stronger pheromones.  I installed three packages side by side about two feet apart.  The middle one slowly got smaller over time and within a couple weeks it was gone.  The other two did just fine.   

[Michael Bush]

Poor quality queens are a major issue.

[beesnweeds]

Poor quality queens are a major issue.

Agree, packaged bees come with mass produced budget queens.

When bees move into A large space, they only have to protect the areas that have drawn comb. If you add a lot of drawn comb to a small hive, they have to waste too many bees to protect it and it seriously slows them down.

If that's the case, then the space shouldn't be an issue for this colony, since, if I understand correctly, they have no comb at all right now.  It seems to me like what they need is to just get drawing.     

It can be an issue, remember these are package bees not a swarm.  Randomly dumping bees into boxes coming off of pollination contracts aren't always the best or all the correct healthy age for wax production.  You have cool temps with foundationless frames and possibly older bees, so they tend to struggle in the empty hive body.  Some packages that Ive helped beginners with had 2 frames or more of drones and worse a few with twisted wings, the newbee didnt know the difference.  Needless to say drones and sick bees dont draw comb.  Its hard to determine the condition of the OPs packages over the internet.  Im willing to bet that not all 3 packages were created equal.  Dumping packages on foundation or better yet drawn comb almost always produces much better results.

[Dora]

When bees move into A large space, they only have to protect the areas that have drawn comb. If you add a lot of drawn comb to a small hive, they have to waste too many bees to protect it and it seriously slows them down.
Jim Altmiller

Ah, that's a very helpful observation for the future, Jim.

In this case, I think I disturbed the bees too much, among other things.

I'm just concerned about them just hanging on one wall - still. (When I gathered them into the cardboard box, they all crawled up the sides. They seem to have done the same thing in the medium super, except they're on just one wall - still. (I have resisted the urge to look, but can tell by the debris in the pan under the screen.)

[The15thMember]

Dora, what sort of debris are you actually seeing in the tray?  If all that is in the hive at this point is bees, syrup, and completely blank frames, what sort of debris are they making?  Also, do you have any idea if they are clustered on the wall or spread out?   

[BeeMaster2]

Dora,
Being able to see what the bees are dropping and where is one of the great things about having trays in the bottom of the hive.
In order to build comb the bees have to cluster to warm the wax up to build comb. If they are clustering on the top bar near the wall they are probably trying to build wax on the frame. If they are just on the wall not near the top of the frame they are probably building comb on the wall.
Jim Altmiller

[Bill Murray]

So, I would have to lean towards Queen issue. Or could be space. Or more likely to much space, not good queen pheromone.