Honey in the brood chamber/aggressive bees

So last week I had posted about the fact that the bees weren’t using the flow frames. I got some good advice and then when I had check a few days later through the windows I saw a lot more activity, but mostly in the middle frames. So today I did an inspection and the first deep has lots of healthy looking capped brood and some stored honey. The second deep brood chamber is mostly filled with stored honey and not much brood activity at all. I also didn’t see much pollen.

The bees were very aggressive during the dive and at least 5 bees were chasing us around the yard and one even followed to our back door(80 ft from the hive).

Any ideas?

I bet you are in a dearth… Even though bees have good stores, they still want to defend what they have stored. This has been discussed extensively recently. Here are a couple of links to the most recent threads:

http://forum.honeyflow.com/t/nectar-dearth-how-good-of-a-flow-are-you-seeing/7861?u=dawn_sd
http://forum.honeyflow.com/t/suddenly-aggressive-bees/7835?u=dawn_sd

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G’day Ryan, I believe that we only need one brood box. That’s all I use. If you only used one brood box, a lot of that honey would be in your flow frames.

If a bee chases me to the back door, I let her follow me inside. Then she will leave me & try to get out through the window, where I squash her. Then I know she isn’t waiting for me next time I go out the back door.

After reading it seems like I have the signs of a summer dearth, but i’m not sure how that could be possible because there is so much in bloom in northern california right now. There are even a few pepper trees in my neighborhood that are in full bloom. One is about 15 feet from the hive and has thousands of bees on it.
Also, my neighbor about 5 blocks away who doesn’t have the flow has a lot of honey in her supers and a lot of healthy brood, nectar, pollen etc. So strange since we are so close in proximity.
Also, thanks for always being so great at the advice!

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I think I might try that next year…or would you suggest removing one now during a possible dearth? I wish there was a local experienced bee keeper, but there just aren’t too many in my town! thanks for the advice!

G’day Ryan. Seeing as your in N. California, it might be best to leave things as they are. The bees might need all that honey in the second brood box for the winter.

How does your climate compare to New Jersey? There’s some good advice on Youtube from the NWNJBA. They could be worth checking out.

Good luck with that Ryan, bye for now

I think New Jersey is pretty different. They have that east coast high humidity/high heat whereas I have very temperate heat(most days 85 degrees) with cooled off evenings.

Bloom does not equal nectar. Think about it from the plant point of view. To survive as a species, you need to make the next generation. To do that, you need pollen, stamens and those produce seeds. Nectar is a condiment that makes it more likely to continue the species, but it isn’t always essential, and sometimes only a little is required to entice diners to come and spread your pollen around.

So… if you are in a dry season, no rain for a while, and you are a plant, what do you do? You continue making the pollen, but you dry up the nectar, which takes much more water anyway. You have to live as a parent in order to pass on your genes, so you can’t afford to spend a lot of water on bees and risk dying from dehydration.

And so goes the nectar dearth. :wink:

G’day again Ryan, there could be a whole combination of factors coming into play at the same time. Number one, your two brood supers may not be completely full yet. #2 You could have a large population of drones in your hive, that will reduce the hives ability to surge ahead like you’d like it to. You need a strong worker population in your hive. #3 It’s worth remembering that the bees use a lot of resources in their day to day operations just to break even.

Just a couple of things to think about & consider, cheers