Split, but no split?

[erbs honey]

One of my hives is getting tall enough - 4 med supers tall, and they were all hanging out at the entrance yesterday at about 4:30 and seemed very populous.  Thinking it was too late to take the hive apart and do a split and we were tired from fencebuilding, I added another medium super.  Today, I  went in to do a split, and did not at first see the broodnest.  I finally saw a frame with a little drone brood, a little worker brood, about 1/3 of a frame of larvae, and a few eggs, one or two of which did not seem to be placed correctly in the cell (but my eyes are not what they used to be either, that could have been my imagination)  And I did see the Queen.  Of course, there were no Queen cells.
The only thing I could come up with is that they had JUST superceded their Queen, and the new Queen was just getting the hang of things.
I just put everything back together again and did not do any splits.
Thoughts on this???

[brewbush]

One of my hives is getting tall enough - 4 med supers tall, and they were all hanging out at the entrance yesterday at about 4:30 and seemed very populous.  Thinking it was too late to take the hive apart and do a split and we were tired from fencebuilding, I added another medium super.  Today, I  went in to do a split, and did not at first see the broodnest.  I finally saw a frame with a little drone brood, a little worker brood, about 1/3 of a frame of larvae, and a few eggs, one or two of which did not seem to be placed correctly in the cell (but my eyes are not what they used to be either, that could have been my imagination)  And I did see the Queen.  Of course, there were no Queen cells.
The only thing I could come up with is that they had JUST superceded their Queen, and the new Queen was just getting the hang of things.
I just put everything back together again and did not do any splits.
Thoughts on this???

Do you have a date of your last inspection and what you saw at that time.  It would be helpful to time events.

I would say recheck in 7 days  At that time you should be able to tell if the pattern has improved and is good or whether she may be a drone layer.   If on recheck she is a drone layer or if they are trying to build supercedure cells I would requeen with a purchased queen.  I have seen hives try to create supercedure cells from a futile position, like drone eggs or full sized queen cell with barely anything in them, only to mistakenly "give them more time"  and the colony turned into a laying worker colony. 

[Oldbeavo]

Usually if they are preparing for a new queen that has just started laying there will be polished cells in preparation of her laying. This new queen will not be as large as a normal but in proportion.
A queen that has stopped or reduced laying appear to be skinny in the abdomen due to low egg production. She may show her age by looking at the edges of her wings see if they are showing wear.
You could isolate this queen in a nuc with her little bit of brood, so she has some nurse bees, and see what happens.
In the mean time add a new queen to the main hive or add a frame of open brood with eggs from another hive for them to form a queen cell.
Make sure you bring the nurse bees with the frame as they will provide the most royal jelly for the new cell.

[Acebird]

And I did see the Queen.  Of course, there were no Queen cells.

That is a great advantage.  Because if you can see the queen you could have split by taking that one frame that had eggs in it and putting it in the split without the queen.
So was there space for the queen to lay?  Did you actually need to add the fifth box?  Out of the four original boxes how much was honey?

[cao]

Was the area around brood empty and ready for the queen to lay in?  If it was then the queen should be getting ready to start laying.  If it was backfilled with nectar then they might be preparing to swarm.

[erbs honey]

And I did see the Queen.  Of course, there were no Queen cells.

That is a great advantage.  Because if you can see the queen you could have split by taking that one frame that had eggs in it and putting it in the split without the queen.
So was there space for the queen to lay?  Did you actually need to add the fifth box?  Out of the four original boxes how much was honey?

You think so?  I didn't split them because there was so little brood and so few eggs.  I guess I could have, because like OldBeavo and cao asked, yes, I remember many empty cells that could have just been waiting for her to lay in.  I will look again this coming weekend.  (I usually only get a chance to inspect my girls only on weekends and staycations) and maybe do the split then.  Thanks.

[erbs honey]

And I did see the Queen.  Of course, there were no Queen cells.

That is a great advantage.  Because if you can see the queen you could have split by taking that one frame that had eggs in it and putting it in the split without the queen.
So was there space for the queen to lay?  Did you actually need to add the fifth box?  Out of the four original boxes how much was honey?

Yes, there was plenty of space for her to lay.  No, I ended up subtracting that fifth super.  They overflowed out the top of the hive when I put the super on, but the next day, when I was able to go inside the hive, I took that one off first, put it back last, and by the time I was to put it back, most of the bees had already left, so I didn't put it back on.

[paus]

Yesterday I was prepared to split or add a super on a strong hive. 
























































































































Yesterday I was prepared to split or add super on a strong hive.  The hive had lots of bees and they were bearding outside.  When I looked at the frames  almost all of the frames had honey, pollen, and brood.  The brood was very scattered with lots of empty cells.  I had a solid board on bottom with very little entry and tight sealing top.  I think they did not have ventilation for a hive in the Texas sun and no shade.  They now have a DSBB and a screened top board and loose fitting telescope cover.  We will see.  I am always open to any comments or suggestions.

[paus]

Don't know what happened but scroll down on previous note, I got a call to get bees from water meter and when I got back this is what happened????????????

[BeeMaster2]

paus,
Add a 3/4" insulation board inside the top cover and one in the STB. I did this about a 2 months ago to 2 hives after putting my hives in the sun at the farm. The bees moved back in that day. I knew to try it because the hives that bearded were the ones that did not have the insulation. The STBs have a door in the front, just below the screen that I can open or close, (so they have a top and bottom entrance) which the bees use to exhaust the hot air from.
Jim

[paus]

I did add a STB when I looked at them and exactly the same thing happened , they stopped the bearding on front.  I am in the process of making STB for all of our hives, Then this fall I plan on putting greenhouse shade fabric on top of the screen I made my STB with the ends 1/8 inch higher than the sides and then sawdust on top.  There may unforeseen things I don't see using this but we will see.  Thanks for all comments and words of experience and wisdom on this subject.