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Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #80 on: June 10, 2020, 02:59:14 pm »



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Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #81 on: June 18, 2020, 12:20:46 pm »
So, I was halfway joking when I suggested that my queen might die, but I think she is a goner. I went in yesterday to look around and didn?t see the queen. I didn?t see any eggs. I had small and medium larva, and capped brood. There was quite a bit of clean comb in the brood chamber with no eggs to be found.
Although I didn?t think I would actually lose the queen to the few bees that made it into the box with the brood frames, I would be happy to have a new queen.
I found 7 queen cups with larva in them. One had been capped and then had the side chewed out.
My fear would be developing a laying worker.
I have 8 of 10 brood frames in the bottom deep and two honey. There are 4-5 brood frames in the medium. Of these, 1/3 is empty and clean, 1/3 larva, 1/3 capped brood.
With 6-7 queen cells, I should think I?ll have a new queen before the brood is depleted and a LW develops.
I plan to check back next week to see if the queen cells are making it. I could add another brood frame then, but I don?t want to keep punishing my stronger hive for being strong. I could see me killing them by taking too much brood.
I may let this run it?s course and if they want to die this bad, so be it. The next hive shouldn?t be so difficult.

Offline JurassicApiary

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #82 on: June 19, 2020, 03:21:44 am »
So, I was halfway joking when I suggested that my queen might die, but I think she is a goner. I went in yesterday to look around and didn?t see the queen. I didn?t see any eggs. I had small and medium larva, and capped brood. There was quite a bit of clean comb in the brood chamber with no eggs to be found.
Although I didn?t think I would actually lose the queen to the few bees that made it into the box with the brood frames, I would be happy to have a new queen.
I found 7 queen cups with larva in them. One had been capped and then had the side chewed out.
My fear would be developing a laying worker.
I have 8 of 10 brood frames in the bottom deep and two honey. There are 4-5 brood frames in the medium. Of these, 1/3 is empty and clean, 1/3 larva, 1/3 capped brood.
With 6-7 queen cells, I should think I?ll have a new queen before the brood is depleted and a LW develops.
I plan to check back next week to see if the queen cells are making it. I could add another brood frame then, but I don?t want to keep punishing my stronger hive for being strong. I could see me killing them by taking too much brood.
I may let this run it?s course and if they want to die this bad, so be it. The next hive shouldn?t be so difficult.

With 7 queen cells in the pipeline, I don't think you need to worry about LW.  Even if it did start, I would think there will be a new queen so soon thereafter that it would suppress the LW without intervention.  Hopefully someone with more than 6th months experience will chime in soon, but that's my opinion.  ;).

Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #83 on: June 21, 2020, 09:23:57 pm »
I?m not sure if the lack of comments is an unspoken, ?this guy is on the right track?, or ?this guy is so far off the rails I?m not talking to him?. 

This week I plan to split the weak hive if the queen cells are still going. I?m gonna leave some cells in the deep and pull the medium. The medium had 3-4 queen cells in it. I?m gonna take the medium and add brood from the stronger hives medium to fill it out to full medium brood chamber and set it on a bottom board and add a top feeder. 

That?s 100% more likely to raise a queen than just one.

Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #84 on: June 23, 2020, 07:55:46 pm »
I went in today and T?ed the bees off. I got hit twice on the left hand.

First hive, the weaker/queenless.
I went in looking for all those queen cells. I Found that I am down to a couple good frames of capped brood. Plenty of bees though. Almost everything that was empty of brood has sugar water and pollen in it. The queen cells were gone I thought. Near the end I did find two queen cells that were capped. The rest were just the bases of the torn down cells.
My assessment was that they must have chosen these cells as the best, or they are just going around and tearing them all down. Otherwise they are overstuffing the brood chamber with sugar water.
I dumped the feeder out and leaned it against the hive.

Next hive, the stronger one.
They too were packing sugar water everywhere. There were frames full of capped and uncapped honey. Everything that was drawn had something in it. Lot of eggs, lots of brood, capped and uncapped. Anywhere else they could squeeze in some sugar water, they were stashing it away, even in the brood frames. I also found about four capped queen cells and a fair amount of drone cells capped.
My assessment was these fools are getting ready to skip town. Every cell has something in it.
I dumped the feeder, put the queen in a clip and pulled a full frame of each, capped and uncapped brood. I shook the bees off, and set them aside. I replaced those two frames with new foundation in the second position from each side. I release the queen, closed it up and leaned the feeder against the hive.

Back to the first hive. I pop it open again. I have to go back through it again to find my queen cups, and keep them safe. Then I find a couple frames of mostly sugar water. Shake them off and replace with the two brood frames, that I forgot to mention, also both had capped queen cells from the good hive.

What I think I did was by removing the feeders, is stop them from packing sugar water in the brood frames. I hope as they draw new comb, they move their stores to more appropriate places. Removing the queen cells from the good hive and adding in the foundation hopefully discourages a swarm and gives them some chores.
The brood boost in the weak hive should keep the LWs at bay until a new queen emerges. Who knows, she might come from good stock.

Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #85 on: June 27, 2020, 07:55:42 pm »
Looks like disaster averted on the swarming behavior. The rainbow painted hive is building comb like crazy in on the new foundation I gave them and moving the stores to the outsides and medium, and eggs are appearing back in the brood frames. As of now, there are no signs of any queen cells in that hive.

The seafoam hive which I keep calling the weaker hive, although, now with all the brood boosts I?ve been giving it is rivaling the ?strong? hive, had a couple queen cells left. One cell in particular was already capped When I saw it last Tuesday, so it should emerge within the next four days.

For giggles, I pulled one frame that had a capped queen cell and put in a nuc with some stores, brood, eggs and bees. I don?t know when they were capped, but I know they were uncapped on Tuesday. They should have a new queen emerging in 4-8 days.

Offline .30WCF

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New Bees
« Reply #86 on: July 03, 2020, 10:14:29 pm »
I need a little help here.
I have a new queen in the nuc I split out of the other two hives. She?s not laying yet but she emerged from what I think was my strong queen?s eggs.


I want to leave them alone, but need to go back in tomorrow to inventory stores. I think the small nuc was not well balanced when I built it, and they probably need a frame of honey/nectar.

I have queen cells getting ready to hatch in the hive that was sick. The teal or seafoam green hive. 

I have uncapped, capped brood in the rainbow painted hive. No eggs anywhere. There are 6 queen cells on one frame alone. She was a good laying queen. Tomorrow I need to either pinch cells or split the hive.  She is still alive and well, just not laying.

Summer solstice has come and gone, and I?m afraid if I split them I?ll be feeding sugar all winter to all my hives.
Right now I have:

a deep with two mediums that are pretty heavy

A deep with one medium that?s pretty heavy

A five frame nuc that I need to transfer another frame of stores into with a new queen.

I can double nuc that purple box, but I don?t have another bottom board on hand to do a full split in a new box.


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« Last Edit: July 04, 2020, 07:45:35 am by .30WCF »

Offline JojoBeeBoy

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #87 on: July 04, 2020, 12:03:21 pm »
Preface: I've lost most of my hives over the past few winters. This year will be the first year I've actually real-deal treated for mites.

We are an hour north of Chattanooga in the mountains so I'm going to assume our climates are similar.

My next move is to try and equalize rather than splitting. I have several deeps that I will be taking out resource frames and replacing with new frames (equally on outside of brood). I will take the resource frames and give them to small 5-frame nucs which now have a few blank frames in them.

Our sourwood flow starts now and I'm thinking this will give the bigger hives (mostly 1 deep w/1 medium currently on bottom) something to do, and help the little guys build up. Hope this helps.

Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #88 on: July 04, 2020, 04:02:59 pm »
Thanks for the reply Jojo.
I did try to equalize a couple weeks ago when all the cells got filled up with sugar syrup, and they started to builds swarm cells. I just may not have been aggressive enough. I pulled a couple frames to build the new nuc, and put some brood into the queenless hive. A week later the syrup had been moved and eggs were laid. Then a week later, no eggs. Lots of empty cells, and queen cells around again.


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Offline .30WCF

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New Bees
« Reply #89 on: July 04, 2020, 04:05:06 pm »
Today I built some bottom boards and entrance reducers so I could split the hive that seems like it wants to swarm. I forgot to cut strips for the underside of the front of the bottom board. I?ll get around to it, but needed one in a hurry to do my split.



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Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #90 on: July 04, 2020, 04:24:04 pm »
The new hive got moved and has the old queen in it. They are now bearding out. I haven?t seen this from any of mine yet. Hope they aren?t still tying to swarm.




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Offline .30WCF

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New Bees
« Reply #91 on: July 04, 2020, 05:12:56 pm »
Dumb me forgot to make a new top to go with the new bottom board. Guess they?ll have to make due with a slab of slate for now.


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Offline JojoBeeBoy

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #92 on: July 04, 2020, 08:36:19 pm »
The new hive got moved and has the old queen in it. They are now bearding out. I haven?t seen this from any of mine yet. Hope they aren?t still tying to swarm.

If they are still out there at dark, and not a lot of of bees in the hive (enough to warrant bearding) then I would scoop that beard carefully and put it back in the top. Years ago I installed a package and came back the next morning to maybe 30 bees huddled over the queen in my Dad's driveway. I don't know if I dropped her or she tried to fly but it far too cold to be on the gravels. She made it and laid like crazy for a time. i.e. your queen may have walked out the front door and be weighing options.

Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #93 on: July 04, 2020, 09:19:50 pm »
The new hive got moved and has the old queen in it. They are now bearding out. I haven?t seen this from any of mine yet. Hope they aren?t still tying to swarm.

If they are still out there at dark, and not a lot of of bees in the hive (enough to warrant bearding) then I would scoop that beard carefully and put it back in the top. Years ago I installed a package and came back the next morning to maybe 30 bees huddled over the queen in my Dad's driveway. I don't know if I dropped her or she tried to fly but it far too cold to be on the gravels. She made it and laid like crazy for a time. i.e. your queen may have walked out the front door and be weighing options.
I?ll give them a look tonight. They are still hanging out now.





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Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #94 on: July 05, 2020, 03:33:34 pm »
They went back in overnight then started to beard out again about 10:00 this morning as it started to warm up.
I assume that black slate heat sink is radiating some heat inside that box, in addition to this being my first solid bottom board rather than a screened bottom board. I put some insulation under the slate. (2) 3/4? pieces.

 


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Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #95 on: July 05, 2020, 05:00:35 pm »
There were a couple other queen cells that got torn down in the nuc once the one queen emerged. Today as I walked buy, an undertaker brought out a dead bee and tossed it on the ground. I wonder if this is a queen that didn?t make the cut. Looks chewed on.





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Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #96 on: July 05, 2020, 05:00:56 pm »






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Offline van from Arkansas

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #97 on: July 05, 2020, 06:03:52 pm »
That is drone larva.  I can see the Huge eyes.  Looks like deformed wing virus, DWV, shriveled wings, but can?t be certain in the early development.  Any way good your nurse bees dragged out the defective drone.  If the drone is in fact DWV, don?t be alarmed: most hives have Varroa and most Varroa have DWV.  You will need to address the mites, Varroa,  which is another topic.
I have been around bees a long time, since birth.  I am a hobbyist so my answers often reflect this fact.  I concentrate on genetics, raise my own queens by wet graft, nicot, with natural or II breeding.  I do not sell queens, I will give queens  for free but no shipping.

Offline .30WCF

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Re: New Bees
« Reply #98 on: July 06, 2020, 12:07:05 am »
That is drone larva.  I can see the Huge eyes.  Looks like deformed wing virus, DWV, shriveled wings, but can?t be certain in the early development.  Any way good your nurse bees dragged out the defective drone.  If the drone is in fact DWV, don?t be alarmed: most hives have Varroa and most Varroa have DWV.  You will need to address the mites, Varroa,  which is another topic.
Yes, I believe you are correct. Drone didn?t even cross my mind. I?m so concerned with queens right now, I went straight to it being an extra queen cell even though I thought it was too short and fat to be a queen when I was holding it. I?m just anxious to get a queen going again. I have four hives,and not a single egg in any of them.

One recent split with the old queen-no eggs

Other half of that split with queen cells, but no eggs

The original sick queenless hive. Had capped queen cells last weekend. I didn?t check it this weekend.

Little nuc has a new queen that tore down the other queen cells but haven?t started laying.


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Offline .30WCF

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New Bees
« Reply #99 on: July 06, 2020, 12:12:21 am »
As for the mites, all the hives are having a major brood break and I was planning on a treatment soon once I get some eggs going again.


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