Brood Cells full of liquid

[jbm68]

Brood Cells full of liquid

Sorry for the long-winded explanation, I thought it would be better to provide more info to paint the picture.

My first hive (3 years old) I have had nothing but issues with it. Despite my best efforts, each spring it has swarm once or twice, leaving the hive weak over summer, and it has produced very little honey, which I tend to leave for winter stores.

I replaced the queen early last summer, to try and resolve the issues. Going into winter, I checked the hive and it was OK, certainly not at full strength with half the brood frames still empty (last summer in Victoria - Australia was very hard on bee colony’s). Half of the Brood frames had what looked to be old wet capped honey still in them across the top. However, a lot of them had what appeared to be uncapped honey, so I left it like that over winter, thinking it would provide additional food stores.

However, just before spring, I checked and the frames still appeared to be the same nothing had changed, and it still had plenty of room to grow, so I fed them leading into spring. I went on holidays for 2 weeks and the day I returned home they swarmed. (I caught them and put them into a nuc, that new hive is doing well).

Yesterday I checked on the old hive, I could not find the queen, but that is probably down to me, but it had very little new brood cells, so somewhat concerning.

However, most not all brood frames still appear to have liquid in the cells, the frames without the cells, still have not been filled in. I think the liquid is uncapped honey but nothing appears to have changed since last summer, other than new queen cells on the bottom of the existing frames, hence the swarming. The swarming certainly was not through the lack of room in the hive.

I also don’t think it is AFB as there is no smell to them, or discoloured capping, or any dead bees.

Can anyone help shed some light on what this liquid looking stuff is, and what I should do to help build this hive back up. Also, I placed the supper on top, hoping that if it is honey in the brood frames they will move it up into the super, so new brood can be grown, but it does not appear to be the case.

Any advice or help would be well apricated.

Regards

Jason

[Eva]

@jbm68

Can anyone help shed some light on what this liquid looking stuff is, and what I should do to help build this hive back up. Also, I placed the supper on top, hoping that if it is honey in the brood frames they will move it up into the super,

Hi jbm and welcome back!

I pasted your quote here because it illustrates a key point: a colony that is weak or too small, ie needs to build back up, should not be supered. I get that you want the bees to free up laying space for the queen, but adding the super means more space for them to manage and guard with too few workers already.

I do think the liquid is nectar, by the way, and the capped honey looks like that because it’s been there awhile. The bees have just walked over it repeatedly and basically polished the caps Nothing wrong with it.

My best advice would be to procure 2 nice frames of brood in all stages (aka BIAS), with plenty of capped worker brood and nurse bees on, from a local beek and add it to this brood box. Take out the empty frames and put these new brood frames in the middle. This will 1) boost the population; 2) anchor the existing bees with brood pheromones; 3) enable your older/existing workers to move into other needed roles with the addition of nurse bees; and 4) provide eggs and larvae to make a new queen if necessary

This season might not yield a honey harvest for you given that your bees will need to focus on build-up for now. Going forward, you should probably also find a mentor and/or read up on swarm management, and get ahead of the game for next season

[jbm68]

Hi Eva,

Thank you for your response, I was thinking along those lines, so thanks for the confirmation. Why I didn’t do it to start with was because I didn’t want to introduce new brood frames into that hive, if the existing frames, with what you believe to be nectar, was in fact a an problem, especially considering they had been like that for months. I guess what I was struggling with, was why did they not cap it, and why did they swarm when there was so much room to begin with, where frames were not built out.

I will do as you have suggested and keep an eye on it, and continue to learn hopefully about swarming .

Cheers

[Novi]

I have a similar situation (Raglan Vic) I have had my 2 hives since November last year. I inspected my hives a few weeks ago and all was looking really good plenty of bees in both hives some uncapped honey at the top of most of the frames and full of capped brood and Larvae, I even spotted the queen on my second hive for the first time. I decided to put the super on both of hives a few days after and the bees were them bubbling out and even fuller than they were. As the weather has been mostly wet and cold I haven’t been able to inspect them as often as I want or need to. I did do and inspection on hive 1 yesterday and found my brood box full of uncapped nectar and very little brood so I am concerned. Even though today was not ideal for an inspection I did one on hive 2 and found that to be almost the same, full of nectar and little brood. Both hives have their supers on so there is plenty of room for honey so I am baffled thinking that I may have lost both queens. Also I think that there are drones in the super and I didn’t think that they could go between the queen excluder. Here is a pic please let me know if I am wrong and this is not a drone, I actually didn’t think it was until I saw the little bee

[Novi]

Oh and there were still lots of bees in the hive.
Novi

[Eva]

@Novi that is a drone. Why he’s in there could be due to a larger-than-normal gap in your excluder, or it was slightly off-center when you replaced it during an inspection at some point, OR somebody is laying eggs in your Flow frames. Edit: Or, he came in thru the bathroom window - sorry, couldn’t resist do you have an upper entrance?

@jbm68 and you too, Novi - adding more room isn’t a foolproof way to prevent swarming. Timing is everything, and very often the colony is already down the path of swarming by the time a beek decides to super. And yes, bees will swarm even before they’ve fully built their existing box out if they see good prospects for increase. It is true that backfilling the brood nest could signal a failing or dead queen, but it’s also one of many signs that a colony is making preparations to swarm, and they don’t bother to cap it because it’s expected to be used in the short term. The remaining workers can readily consume it to produce more wax to keep building, and gradually open the brood area back up for the new queen when she’s ready to lay.

It’s helpful to keep in mind that swarming is not an objectively bad thing, it may be inconvenient or even disruptive to us but it’s simply the way insects reproduce and move out into the world. Swarm management is just our attempt to anticipate and move with this reproductive process to keep it contained within reason.

[Doug1]

Hi Jason, and although I am located in an entirely different part of the world, perhaps bees don’t care and my advice may be of some help. I use New Zealand packages from time to time even though I’m located in Canada, kiwi bees respond the same way. My observations over 5 decades of beekeeping have resulted in the following management biases when intentionally trying to disrupt the swarming instinct of honeybees. After all, it’s not much fun losing a hive to swarming.

Observations:

1. The lack of empty worker cells in a brood box is a precursor to swarming.

2. Adding more room on top of an existing plugged (honey and/or pollen) brood box is not an effective way to prevent swarming…it’s already too late.

3. Hoping that bees will move honey around inside the brood box, or move it above to a new super/brood box, is in most cases wishful thinking. The beekeeper must help them out.

4. A cell full of liquid honey/nectar that is not capped is not available for the queen, just like a fully capped cell of honey.

5. Honey, pollen, and capped brood without open brood in a brood box all contribute to the swarming instinct…that queen has to be kept laying at a steady pace.

Although this looks like a beautiful brood feed frame (note the small amount of brood upper center), I feel nervous when I see something like this frame adjacent to the brood area. During spring buildup and rich bee resource availability time, I remove these frames and replace with an empty frame or foundation frame.

Here is a photo of a foundation frame transformed directly into a capped brood frame. The foundation frame was inserted into the congested brood nest…. 2 to 3 weeks passed.

After the plugged feed frame was removed the desperate queen went to work (note that the queen didn’t even allow the new built out cells to be completely drawn out in depth. She laid in the cells anyways and larvae and pupae developed just fine. Also, the queen didn’t mind that there wasn’t any pollen/nectar stored nearby on the same frame…the nurse bees tending larvae were getting nutrition from other areas of the hive.

This swarm control method can be used on strong, healthy hives…you know, the ones that want to swarm. A regular empty brood frame can of course be used also…preferably dark wax/used brood frame.

Good luck to you…you will in time be able to “read” the status of a hive …just takes time and patience. There are some great mentors on this forum…and you willingness to ask questions is a real bonus.

[jbm68]

They say most things in life come down to common sense, but it’s not so common unless it’s been shared in the first place. The points you’ve listed make perfect sense now that you’ve spelled them out. Being a visual person, the images certainly helped to clarify things.

I’ll do as Eva suggested and remove the super. I’m not sure if I’m able to add full brood frames just yet from the other hive, but I’ll definitely follow your method of adding two new foundation frames.

And to think, my wife bought me a nuc for Christmas three years ago, saying I needed a hobby to help me de-stress from work. I’m not sure if that’s the advice I’d give to any new bee novice!

[jbm68]

Thanks for the response, with this update and Doug’s comment below, I have a better understanding and insight, along with next steps.

Cheers

[Novi]

Thanks Eva, no I don’t have an entrance in the top and I have only put the super on, on Oct 18th so even if someone was laying in the super they would not have been there long enough to emerge. I did an inspection today and one hive has some capped brood, both still have too much nectar for my liking. Some queen cells in both. Fingers crossed all will work out in the end.

[Eva]

Maybe that guy happened to land in the super and been accidentally stuck in there as you were placing it then. I’d be concerned about your excluder having too wide a gap somewhere if you’ve seen more than this one drone.

More importantly for now, with queen cells and too much nectar in the brood box, your super needs to come off while you deal with swarm management !

[JeffH]

Just to be pedantic, bees don’t store nectar in cells. They start the process of converting nectar into honey right from when they start flying home with it. Then the process continues after the ‘very unripe honey’ is delivered into the hive. This is according to my “ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture”. Then I was thrilled to observe a bee actually doing what is described in the book in the video “City of Bees”. It’s the part where they show a bee returning back to a hive. You can see the glistening of the honey being worked and dewatered in front of it’s mouth.

[Eva]

Good point, Jeff! There’s always more to learn

[Novi]

Thanks I will keep an eye on it all. They are very confusing, I thought I knew what I was doing but clearly not quite yet

[craig_W]

I can fully relate JBM! My journey to date has involved AFB, swarms, QB balling, more swarms, then total slime outs thx to the varroa build up. And then getting back on the horse with angry hives, requeening and then them both swarming! But in between all that, there’s been the joy of harvesting and sitting beside them of a morning with a cuppa in hand and watching them work is a major stress reliever. But the best thing I’ve discovered along the way (4yrs now roughly) has been this forum and the amazing support from the people on here. There’s so much knowledge willingly shared it’s worth perusing the chats and asking questions no matter how silly you think they are (I am the king a silly questions ha!) enjoy the journey and look forward to a future post showcasing your harvests!

[jbm68]

Hi Craig, thanks for sharing your experience, it puts mine back into perspective. Good luck with yours.

Cheers