Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => TOP BAR HIVES - WARRE HIVES - LONG HIVES => Topic started by: bassman1977 on July 02, 2008, 02:51:30 pm
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I started a TBH this spring with a 3 lbs package. They were coming along, and got about 7 bars drawn out. I have generally been leaving them alone but today I did do an inspection. There's about 3 bars of bees, a few are definately younger, most are old, but it seems like there are a lot of drones left over. There's definately no laying workers (yet) and not much drone comb. I suspect that drones don't die as fast as the workers? Anyway, I am guessing that the hive has been queenless for at least 3 or 4 weeks considering that all the brood has emerged. There are some stores and the hive, aside from being queenless looks healthy. I don't remember off hand, but is it too late to introduce a new queen if I shake a couple frames of bees into this hive? I am thinking that I will shake the bees in, wait an hour or two, and then put the new queen in. Sound good? This is my only TBH (probably my first mistake) so I can't add a frame of eggs from another hive.
As always, I appreciate all help.
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Bump. Any help out there?
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Sorry brother I had to find out what TBH was before anything else. I have zero experience with em
Keith
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Sounds suspiciously like they swarmed....if they swarm more than once it takes a beastly long time for the new queen to get going. Even so, if that is the case, a new queen should be almost ready to lay...
If not, you can try to cut out some comb with eggs, pin/glue that to a top bar somehow and see if they will start queen cells... if not then there is probably a queen or something not mated, if so then they are truely queenless.
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That gives me a great idea. When I was in there, I saw a bar they had just started to build on. I'll have to double check the bar length and see if I can fit it into a langstroth and get a queen to lay in it. If and when she does, I can move it back to the TBH.
Thanks for the reply!