So Azure is your queen in waiting?
It is she that will be united with Emerald or Sapphire?
Or have I got it all wrong?
Yes QIW Azure is possible virgin - if she has mated and laying and I see results by Friday, will have a stay of execution - otherwise - I still need to find her before uniting with Sapphire my smaller hive that went from the Poly Hive back into a Nuc - Sapphire is laying but the lack of forage really knocked her for 6 - not her fault.
So she will be being fed until I see vast improvements she is a good Queen although this years emergent 11/5/15 - I moved her into a Hive too soon possibly and the weather has not been kind.
She comes from Good Stock so will not give up on her.
We are talking about a mug full of bees. But I understand that Valli wishes to save themâŚif she can. Shaking through Queen excluder was suggested. Sometimes you just have to bite on the bullet.
Actually 2 mug fulls now, more have emerged, but donât want to risk Sapphire
No you mustnât risk Sapphire. Not for two mugs of bees anyway.
1 Like
Valli, you could certainly save that 2 mugs of bees with a good supply of brood. Just one frame (especially with hatching brood) every 10 days for a month or so & youâll end up with a really strong hive. From what I saw, you donât have those frames of brood to spare.
Jeff Brood production on all hives slowed down with the loss of forage over the summer - That is the whole problem.
No forage, they chuck out the drones to save food, they feed the Queens less and the Queens lay less brood - Circle of life interrupted.
Sort of Catch 22
I know what you mean Valli, in my first message & was referring to the hives as they appeared in the video. With your weather being different to ours, Iâm guessing youâd probably be best to unite the bees from the third hive to the first hive. So you have 2 reasonably strong hives going into winter. At the start of spring or more importantly, the start of swarm season, think about splitting then. Put your name down with the council for swarm collections or if you have time before the next edition, list yourself as a beekeeper in the equivalent of âYellow Pagesâ. This thread has shown me one thing, although I have never had a marked queen, itâs probably best I didnât because it could be easy to rely on the marks. You need to get practice at finding queens. Sometimes Iâll find a queen by holding the frame at a 30-45deg. angle to my eyes, sometimes sheâll just stand out above the rest. Also the virgin queens seem to move around with more purpose than the workers, with a bit of practice, youâll get clever at spotting those also. Good luck with everything, Iâll talk to you later, bye
JeffâŚthe two colonies Valli started with were nucsâŚwhich she hivedâŚwell probably âŚas she saysâŚa bit too soon. So they have struggled to make enough bees to make up for the frames she took out to make the walk away split. Plus the bees have worked very hard as they had to make combâŚas they were given strips of waxâŚwhich wouldnât have been a problemâŚif there were lots of bees and a nectar flow. The weather has been very poor and there havenât really been any good nectar flowsâŚwell not in my area since the spring. I think initially the bees did have nectar coming in but this slowed right up. No Food= no bees âŚso I think Sapphire stopped laying and Emerald slowed right up too. Since Valli has been feeding them the queens are laying againâŚbut it will take time for the colonies to recover from the set back. She canât take any brood from them as they canât spare it and the nuc she made is now very smallâŚwith ageing bees. If there is a mated queenâŚshe may start to layâŚValli thinks by the 20th. But if she isnât mated and doesnât layâŚthe nuc is doomed. If she canât find the queenâŚshe canât combine. If the queen starts layingâŚit is unlikely that the nuc can recover sufficiently to make a viable winter nuc. The safest option is to shake them out.
1 Like
Thanks for summarising HHH
Hi, I agree, however I think you said you canât combine the queenless colony with the stronger colony. I have found that I can combine them using the newspaper method quite successfully. You wouldnât attempt that during bad weather. During good weather is no problem. As you say, the bees are aging, so they might as well finish their lives helping out the weakest of the two stronger hives.
JeffH is right.
It is easy to combine a small colony with a stronger one (in fact it is usually hopeless to combine two weak ones in the hope of creating a stronger colonyâŚit just doesnât work).
1 sheet of newspaper, no holes queen in the bottom box. It will give the bees some work to do. They might be aging but they have had no brood to feed so they have a few weeks yet.
A lesson learned the very hard way. You just canât split colonies unless they are strong. The split doesnât survive and the donor colonies are weakened.
I hope much needed pollen comes in with the Ivy
1 Like
Well we will know when they are on the ivyâŚcos it stinks! Mine were bringing in Himalayan balsam yesterdayâŚI hope today stays fine again.
1 Like
Feel less stressed now!! Didnât want to do it but shook all the bees in the walk away split between 2 Queen excluderâs - there was some fanning and huddling but still could see no Queen - Left them to their own devices - rinsed everything down - will wash in Soda crystals when the weather is better. The good Queens - Sapphire and Emerald are bringing in pollen so they are looking up!!
Chalk that up to experience!
If the weather had played ball all would have been well
The main thing is that we learn from such an experience. The bees have suffered a setback but it is possible for them to recover before winter sets in.
Now feed them but keep checking that there is room for the queens to lay. So once they have syrup in the cells of 2 full frames in Emerald and 1 frame in Sapphire plus some arcs of storesâŚthat is the time to ease up on the feeding âŚso they have time to eat it. When you see the level of stores droppingâŚfeed another couple of pints. So it mimics a flow. No need to spend ages inspectingâŚa quick look to make sure they are still progressingâŚonce per week. Each inspection will set them backâŚso only inspect for a good reason. Good luck.
1 Like
I have formed the opinion that every time we disturb the bees, they see us as nothing more than another predator. Thatâs why even if we disturb them without smoke, weâll still see bees diving in to eat honey.
Thank you for sharing.
Checked the hives today Way better - they obviously needed food now they are getting back on track
4 Likes
Valli,
If you shake out a colony then you have to take their hive completely away, not just close it up.
Smoke them wellâŚI mean really well, and leave them for ten minutes to give them time to gorge on stores. They will beg their way into another hive using the eaten stores as a bribe. Any queen, of course will be denied entry.
Valli:
Nice hives. They are super clean, mine have a lot of propolis, specially in the excluder. That tells me they donât have as much food, so itâs probably good that you feed them. I did notice that the first hive is almost empty, Hopefully it picks up.