Understanding what a hive can tell you

[TwT]

I have learned in the few years I have kelp bee's that if you know how to understand bee's, beekeeping just needs a little understanding and common sense (experience come with time ;) ). A few ask the question all the time like I want to split a hive in the early spring when can I do this, well the answer is in your hives, all you have to look for is drones, odds are if your hives have drone the local hives will also! you dont want the bee's to raise a queen until she can be successfully mated. Or when you want to do a spilt and can't find the queen, well that is easy just make sure both sides has a frame of egg and larva, honey , pollen and they should do fine or if you want to add a queen to a split, well the day before your queen arrives split the hive the day before and just go back to the hives 2-4 hours later and the load split will be the queenless hive.  Or when new beeks inspect a hive and see no larva or eggs they think they are queenless, all you have to do is ask the hive if they are,, and what do I mean by that? well put a frame of eggs and young larva from another hive in that hive and inspect that frame in a few days, if they are queenless then they will start building queen cells and they aren't building queen cells then they probably have a young queen that hasn't started laying yet or check the frames for laying workers (multiple eggs in a cell). a lot of time a new beek will see no larva and think they are queenless and go and order a queen only to install her and have her killed by the hive because there is already a young queen in the hive that hasn't started laying yet, then they are out the price of queen and shipping. another thing is when you do a removal, with some experience you can tell if the bee's have been there awhile or not because old dark brittle comb is a sign of years and if that hive was lose and a swarm replaced it you could probably see were they repaired wax moth damage, just takes looking at comb and seeing the difference it changes every year... that's just a few to start with, lets see how many we can get, got to go I will add a few more later!!!!! Just a few things I thought I would throw out there. some may not agree with some of the thing I said above but these have worked for me many times...... if you have any good ways to understand what a hive can tell you add them please!!!!!!!

[Kirk-o]

Great Info thank you
kirk-o

[Finsky]

...... if you have any good ways to understand what a hive can tell you add them please!!!!!!!

And you say that drones told you all that?  I have not noticed  :-P

[Understudy]

My hives always have drones. :)

I don't mind drone population.

I haven't done any splits yet. I need to do some this year. It will be interesting to see how my splits go. I also like the idea behind checkerboarding.

I don't mind having a lot brood chambers. A strong hive will gather lots of honey.

Also I don't view swarming as evil. I just want to try to keep it to a minimum. My neighbors don't need to ask me if my bees have decided to move into their yard.

Also a hive that doesn't swarm does produce a lot more honey. I am still however learning lots of stuff, so I am not going to freak if my bees swarm, or if my split screws up.

I have realized that bees swarm based on the space they live in also(not the only reason they swarm). I had a hive living in a duckbox that swarmed. They simply outgrew the space. However I have a hive that has 6 mediums for brood. It also swarmed but you could barely tell. Because the population was replenished so quickly. I had to check to see if I had swarm cells to confirm my suspicions.

So now I am going to try some other steps. I don't have the two mile option. I mean I could take bees to my sisters which is 140 miles but I want to take stong hives to her place. It's a long drive.

Nice article. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Michael Bush]

>My hives always have drones.

Everyone's hives have drones, no matter what they do.  Nothing you do will stop the bees from rearing the same number of drones.

Levin, C.G. and C.H. Collison. 1991. The production and distribution of drone comb and brood in honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies as affected by freedom in comb construction. BeeScience 1: 203-211.

[TwT]

Everyone's hives have drones, no matter what they do.  Nothing you do will stop the bees from rearing the same number of drones.

Levin, C.G. and C.H. Collison. 1991. The production and distribution of drone comb and brood in honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies as affected by freedom in comb construction. BeeScience 1: 203-211.

MB, are you saying your hives raise drone all year round?

[Understudy]

Mine does.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[TwT]

I can see that understudy, (south florida) you have no winter. my hives kick the drones out every late fall and I dont see any till spring time.

[Michael Bush]

>MB, are you saying your hives raise drone all year round?

No, but I'm saying they will rear the same number during the same time of year no matter what I do.

Since I went to the ferals I see a few drones all year round.  But not many.

[qa33010]

   This winter I've done tapes on the hives when they fly and I can't be there.  I have seen them pull drones out and keep them out on tape and there are drones the next time.  Not many, but some and they will fly during orientation flights.  So I guess I have to say, yes, drones last year (mild) in my feral hive and this winter them and the russians and the other two hives, I'm not sure of what they are (brown), bees.