2nd Brood Box Turned Almost Completely Into Drones

Beekeeping - Basics
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Hello, all -

Thank you in advance for any tips or advice. First time post for me.

I started my flow hive last year and started my top bar hive this year. My flow hive over-wintered very well and I did 5-6 oxalic acid vapor treatments back around the start of 2021 to decimate the varroa mite population.

It has been a very strong hive and I added a 2nd brood box to give room to expand in early April with 10 foundation-less frames in the 2nd brood box. After about 10 days, I opened the hive to discover the bees hadn’t drawn any comb on the empty frames.

I decided to “checkerboard” the empty frames with full frames and moved 5 full frames from the original brood box into the 2nd brood box. I kept feeding 1:1 sugar water during this time which may have been to my demise.

After about another 10 days, I opened the hive to discover they had been very busy drawing out new comb, however, the new comb was about 75% drone comb. My queen is healthy and is still laying many full frames (5-6) of worker brood, but the hive mentality decided to turn the vast majority of the 10 new frames into drone comb.

I took a few days to research and decided to take a somewhat drastic measure that I feel a little bit guilty about now. I purchased some plastic foundation frames and opened the hive and ended up replacing 7 out of the 10 newly drawn frames which had at least 2/3 drone comb drawn out. If the frame was 50/50 drone to worker comb, I left it alone.

I understand that the hive mentality wanted those drones or perhaps they were over-compensating trying to balance the drone/worker ratio, and I also understand it is always best to let nature decide how to manage itself. I will open the hive again today to see how they are doing with the foundation frames.

I’m just wondering if I made a mistake swapping out those 7 drone frames with foundation frames. My conscience is making me feel a bit of guilt about it which is probably silly.

Thanks again,

-Steve

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Hi Steve,
Well, I had the same “problem” of overcrowded brood box and Super, so I put (only yesterday) a second brood box inbetween. I don’t know yet what they are going to build. I’ll make a visit again in 10 days to see what’s going on.
Come back here to tell us what happened when you opened today, please. It’s interesting !

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Hi Steve, don’t feel guilty. I think you did the right thing. I would have swapped out the 50/50 frame as well. I like no more that about 5% drone comb on any of my brood frames.

I’m more inclined to split a hive in preference to adding a second brood box. A single brood box is much easier to handle than two brood boxes, is what I find. I know some beekeepers in Canada use single brood boxes.

cheers

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They do but they are also committed to heavily feeding their bees once they take off all the supers. Also, they have to very proactive regarding swarm control in the spring - might be a big commitment for a hobbyist with a day job.

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Hello and welcome to the Flow forum! :blush:

You have already had some great responses, but I have a question for you. How old is your queen? If she could be 2 years old, or older, it is possible that she is now mostly a drone-layer. May be worth considering requeening. :wink:

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It’s a good option that a hobbyist with a day job can still achieve. Primarily because proper preemptive swarm control splits only need to happen once every 4-5 weeks during the spring to avoid swarming. On top of that the extra income from selling nucs is always handy to help pay for the hobby.

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I believe the queen is 1-2 years old, but have no way to verify. I bought her in a 5 frame nuc from a bee company that ships up dozens/hundreds of nucs and packages each year from California.

I would agree that a new queen might be needed, however, she also had about 3-4 full frames of capped worker brood and 2-3 partial frames of worker brood, so I like to think she is doing well.

My theory is that the hive decided to build all that drone comb and she simply laid the eggs the hive was telling her to lay.

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You may well be right. Bees are tricky things! Just wanted to mention it in case that you knew she was 4 years old, or something like that… :wink:

If they want to swarm, they also make a lot of drones, so I would keep an eye open for swarm queen cells when you next inspect.

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Your theory is 100% correct in my opinion. The colony wanted to produce all those drones because it is swarm season, meaning there will be virgin queens from other hives needing to get mated. Therefore the more drones a colony can produce, the greater the chance that colony has of passing on it’s genes.

From our point of view, we don’t need our hives to have as many drones as each colony would like to have, if we can avoid it, as harsh as that may seem. Especially in areas where hive beetles are active. I keep drone comb to a minimum as a hive beetle mitigation strategy. The bonus of that is: more workers to produce more honey & more splits, which turns a hobby into a worthwhile paying hobby.

Another thing to consider is the fact that the bees, if given a chance will build lots of drone comb during the swarm season, so as to produce lots of drones. However if we leave that drone comb in place for the rest of the season, the bees will have nothing else to do with it, except store honey & pollen during periods when they don’t want as many drones, which can segregate worker brood, unless the frames are manipulated.

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Drone comb is also varroa mite breeding ground.

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Well, just an update about this hive after about a month and 3 more inspections.

After swapping out the drone comb filled foundation-less frames with foundation frames, the colony accepted the foundation frames and built them out. For about 3 weeks and during 2 inspections in that time, I failed to spot the queen which was odd, but there was still good worker brood being laid and various stages of eggs and larvae, so I knew she was there. I found a few queen tea cups being built on the bottom of frames during this 3 week period, but no eggs or larvae inside, but it seemed like the hive was agitated and thinking about replacing this queen.

About 4 weeks later and during my 2nd to last inspection, there was a supercedure queen cup in the middle of a frame (peanut sized queen cup) that was capped. Also during this 2nd to last inspection, there were lots of drone brood laid ABOVE the queen excluder inside the flow honey super frames. Either the queen slipped through the excluder, or, more likely, I have laying workers. This stubborn hive is just intent on laying drones!!

About 5 1/2 weeks later and during my most recent inspection, the supercedure queen cup hatched, I spotted a queen (not sure if she is the old one or a new one), and there has been an interruption in brood rearing. I think things should get back on track now, but we will see…

My best guess is that most likely due to much fiddling about by me with adding the 2nd brood box, using foundation-less frames that they didn’t touch initially so I “checked boarded”, then they drew then out to be mostly drones, and then replacing those with foundation frames - All over the course of 6 weeks or so, that this hive just had too many changes and probably replaced their queen in reaction to my fiddling about.

I think all will be right eventually, and luckily, they should recover before the blackberries bloom here in Washington state, but I’ll have learned a couple lessons from this experience. The next time I add a 2nd brood box, I will probably go with foundation frames from the start. I will probably also checkerboard from the start as well. If I had done those two things from the start, it would have saved about 4 weeks and potentially prevented added meddling by me to make those changes.

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Maybe I am not getting the timing right but it seems kind of quick to develop laying workers… Were there any other stigma of laying workers? Multiple eggs, misplaced eggs, drone caps on worker sized cells? If the eggs were ONLY above, I think that would indicate that the queen was trapped up there and the workers superseded her because there was no worker brood pheromone.

I don’t think the workers would create a queen cell if there were laying workers because for all they know, they have an egg-layer.

Any one else’s thoughts?

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And they can’t make a queen with an egg from a laying worker, so I’m also thinking there’s another explanation.

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Your guesses are better than mine! I’m not sure what this hive is up to.

No sign of laying workers, but I am a bad judge of egg status. I have a hard time seeing eggs unless held absolutely in perfect lighting. And, I don’t normally look for odd egg pattern. I only assume laying workers because these most recent drone brood were above the excluder, but yes, you’re right - The queen might have slipped through and gotten stuck above the brood boxes.

I know for sure I spotted the queen in the bottom brood boxes during this last inspection. And Eva is right, they wouldn’t make a queen supercedure cup without a viable egg, so my old queen must have laid that egg.

I definitely did notice a brood rearing interruption in the brood boxes, which may lend credence to your theory about the queen getting above the excluder and then getting stuck (although she must have found her way down since).

I will open this hive again this weekend and see what surprises await. Hopefully lots and lots of good patterned worked brood and hopefully no drone brood above the excluder.

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Update:

This hive is doing very well! I opened it up a couple weeks ago and spotted a queen and only had about 1 1/2 frames of capped brood, but she was working.

The blackberries are in bloom and this hive is definitely on the nectar! They have filled up the honey super incredibly fast in the last few weeks. Overall, it is about 2/3 of the way full. See photo.

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I opened the hive again today and on top of the 80 pounds or so of honey stores in the super, there is probably another 60 pounds combined in the two brood boxes. The queen is busy and is doing great - About 8-10 frames worth of various stages of brood. They have nearly drawn out all of the plastic frames I swapped in for the drone laden frames and they have lots of pollen stores.

A healthy hive and a happy ending.

Ironically, my 1st year top bar hive re-queened as well but are back on track and doing well.

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That’s great news Steven. We all love happy endings, as well as good news stories.

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And now, the day after I boast about how great this hive is doing, they look like they might be preparing to abscond. Here is what the flow frames look like 24 hours after my last photo:

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Completely emptied out. I’m scratching my head on this one. I have 3 theories -

  1. They are preparing to abscond and are getting honey bound. I say abscond and not swarm because yesterday, during my inspection, there were no queen cups so no new queen is being raised. And the 8-10 solid brood frames suggests the queen is healthy and doing well.

  2. Maybe we are in a nectar dearth. It has been very dry the last couple weeks here in Washington state and I wouldn’t be surprised if the nectar from the blackberries has dried up. Since this hive is rather large and healthy, they are doing through stores to keep the hive going.

  3. Maybe they are just moving the honey around and wanted to remove it from the ends of the flow frames. When I removed the middle frame yesterday, it was about 75% capped with a semi-circle of open honey in the middle. Maybe they took the honey from the ends to fill in the middle? Doubtful, I know, but I am wishfully thinking.

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Hi Steven, if I read it correctly, you have 8-10 solid brood frames, I’m assuming all workers. If that’s the case, your colony wont be getting ready to abscond. I suggest that you probably are in a dearth, so therefore the bees are consuming the honey from the outside edges first, which is normal.