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Author Topic: No brood?  (Read 4279 times)

Offline iddee

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Re: No brood?
« Reply #20 on: September 27, 2019, 04:43:36 pm »
I would choose the frame with the smallest open larva in the small hive, brush the bees off, "do not shake",and add it to the main hive. In 6 days, you should have queen cells. Then do as I suggested with a cell or 2, rather than an egg. or order a mated queen.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

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Offline rgennaro

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Re: No brood?
« Reply #21 on: September 27, 2019, 04:48:19 pm »
Thanks for the advice.

THP: For purely logistics reason can this be made to work by bringing the queenright small hive to the location of the main hive? Two reasons: 1) much easier to move the smaller queenright swarm hive 2) the location of the main hive is where I am setting up my apiary (the queenright small hive is right next to the barn where the swarm had taken residence).

Idee: I thought of moving an entire frame today but then since I am leaning towards a combine anyway I decided not to do it.

Offline TheHoneyPump

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No brood?
« Reply #22 on: September 27, 2019, 04:51:52 pm »
Rgennaro.  Yes
Iddee.  Perhaps look at the calendar and location (NY).  Given the status of both hives and timing. The only practical choice is to combine.
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline rgennaro

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Re: No brood?
« Reply #23 on: September 27, 2019, 10:36:34 pm »
THP: so I was planning to move the small queenright hive on top of the main queenless and just put newspaper in between. I want them locked in so they don?t drift back to the old location. Would the mated queen still be ?favored? over the virgin one?

Offline TheHoneyPump

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No brood?
« Reply #24 on: September 27, 2019, 10:57:26 pm »
Not if you put her on top.  That will only perpetuate the situation, imho.  A VQ will happily hang out and roam around below, just waiting for the opportunity for a battle royale.  Putting the laying queen on top, The exercise would likely end with a bigger hive that still has no laying queen.
The purpose of the arrangement described is least disruptive way to isolate, quarantine, and have the bees ultimately dispatch the possible VQ above.  You want the bees moving through the brood-nest of an actively laying queen to get to the entrance/exit.  That is why I am recommending she go in the bottom box. Putting the laying queen on top, fewer of the bees will see and know her, more bees will see the VQ.
The alternative is for you to shake all the bees of the main hive through a queen excluder, you find and you pinch the VQ crawling on it, then do the newspaper combine any way you want.
No matter which way you go, you are going to loose bees to the drift back.
I suggest that however you decide to combine them, that you maintain a queen excluder between them for 3 to 4 weeks or until you are absolutely confident there is only one queen present and she is laying and is the one you want to keep around. Whichever comes first.

Pick your preference.  Decide.  Then just get it done, soon.  Not much time left in the calendar for them to have a remote chance of recuperating a brood nest for winter.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2019, 11:13:30 pm by TheHoneyPump »
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline rgennaro

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Re: No brood?
« Reply #25 on: October 02, 2019, 07:10:19 pm »
Update: I combined the hives on Tuesday. We moved the small queenright hive on top of the large queenless hive at the location of the latter. We (my local experienced beek friend who came over to help and I) decided that there was no queen in the large hive, not even a virgin one.

Everything went smoothly, except that when I checked in the afternoon I noticed that there was a small hole in the small hive that bees were using to come in and out. I closed it with duct tape, and went to check the original location, which was right next to the barn where I keep all my beekeping supplies including drawn frames and the old nuc box this hive was originally housed in. There were several bees there and they were not just hanging out by the place of the old hive but they were also going into the barn and flying around the old nuc box. So I decided to give them a home. Put a medium box with drawn comb frames and a top feeder with sugar water. The main goal was to get them out of the barn, which worked.

I also noticed lots of robbing activity by yellow jackets at both hives. The big one should be strong enough for now to take care of them.

If by the time the two hives are combined, the drifted bees are still alive, should I try to put them in (do another newspaper combine)?

thanks everybody for the help.

Offline TheHoneyPump

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No brood?
« Reply #26 on: October 02, 2019, 10:26:43 pm »
Best not to put anything there. Leave the bees to wander and they will eventually find their way to beg into a nearby hive.
If you do put something there then each evening at twilight take the box of drifted bees over to the main hive and shake them out onto the entrance landing board. As the days go by there should be fewer and fewer bees in the box.  That is, until it the capture box is discovered and switched to a robbing site. Putting a feeder on will certainly encourage so.  Then the box will suddenly seem full of bees, wasps, moths, and beetles.
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline rgennaro

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Re: No brood?
« Reply #27 on: October 06, 2019, 12:06:01 am »
I looked at the combined hive today, there was no newspaper shreds outside but a small pile of dead bees. I lifted up the top box and the news paper was mostly intact. I made a few slits with my hive tool and closed everything back up. There was a small pile of dead bees outside the hive and a small pile of dead bees on top of the news paper.

How long does it take for them to shred the paper? I put them together on Tuesday ...

Thank you as usual

Online BeeMaster2

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Re: No brood?
« Reply #28 on: October 06, 2019, 07:31:04 am »
Usually they start shredding it within a day. Within 2 days the paper is mostly gone.
Is the top box full of bees?
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« Last Edit: October 08, 2019, 06:55:00 am by sawdstmakr »
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Offline rgennaro

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Re: No brood?
« Reply #29 on: October 06, 2019, 08:54:37 am »
I didn?t look. I?ll try to look today it?s supposed to be in the 60s but with showers. If there is a break in the rain I?ll open the box. Thanks

Offline rgennaro

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Re: No brood?
« Reply #30 on: October 10, 2019, 01:26:48 pm »
So we finally had a nice day and I was able to open the hive. The newspaper was still intact.

The top hive (1 box which was small and queenright) was fine. The queen was there laying, nice patches of brood at all stages, not a lot of bees but pretty much the same level as when I moved it to the present location to combine. There has been a substantial driftback to the original location (still today) so I was afraid it?d be empty.

THe bottom hive (2 deep, lots of bees and apparently queenless) seems to have gone LW. There were small patches of only drone brood (raised caps). Did not see a queen. Did not see multiple eggs either but either way a queen in her right mind would not be laying drones now, no? So it?s either laying workers or a drone layer queen?

I am not sure why they did not eat the news paper and combine ... any clue?

I think that THP was correct in that I should have confined the larger queenless hive above the newspaper, so I decided to do it now. I moved the queenright hive at the bottom, put newspaper above it and put the other 2 boxes on top. There is a feeder on top with 2:1 syrup as well.

Let me know what you think.


Offline rgennaro

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Re: No brood?
« Reply #31 on: October 12, 2019, 11:01:44 pm »
Ok I am ready to give up. Today, 2 days after I rotated the boxes and out the larger hive on top, still the news paper had not been touched. What?s going on? The large hive has no other way to get out, and we had nice warm days. I lifted the box and made more slits in the news paper.

Another question: currently there is a top feeder with 2:1 syrup which the bees are not really touching. It?s full of drowned yellow jackets. And there is a fuzzy mold growing on the inner cover on top of the feeder. Should I throw that syrup away? It?s been in there for about 10 days.

Thanks

R

Offline TheHoneyPump

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No brood?
« Reply #32 on: October 13, 2019, 12:43:06 am »
Usually the bees do not remove all of the newspaper right away. They will just open up enough passage ports that they need to move around. Only when the populations are fully merged, work tasks reallocated, will they get to thoroughly clean house and reorganize.  This usually takes 2weeks, undisturbed.  You have been messing with them alot.  Perhaps leave them alone for awhile.

Same principle of time to reorganize applies to them using the feeder.  Until they have merged and figured out who is who in the bee zoo, they are disorganized.  My advice would be to remove the feeder.  Dump the rancid syrup of course.  Leave the feeder off for at least a week, for reasons given.  In the meantime You can forage feed (open feed) by setting up a station 20 yards away from the hive(s).  If you cannot open feed, then do not feed at all, for the time being.

Hope that helps.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2019, 02:14:56 pm by TheHoneyPump »
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.