I picked up my nuc the first week of June (northern hemisphere, colder climate), so they’ve been in the hive for about 8 weeks now. I followed all directions and everything from the outside looks to be quite normal even today.
I’ve inspected the brood several times, including today, and they seem active and the roof sticks on due to activity and the hive expanding - except for one thing. They’ve not really expanded to the empty frames. Or at least, the expansion has been quite slow. There hasn’t been a massive die off that I’ve seen. We had a heat wave about a month ago, which was rough, and there were a few dead bees below the hive. But, nothing on a mass scale.
I have the larger 7 frame flow hive 2+, so in addition to the 5 frames from the nuc, they would need to fill in 5 additional frames. I added the 5 frames from the nuc to the center and put 2 empty frames on one side and 3 empty frames on the other side. I can’t remember why I went for the bigger size, but I feel like I read somewhere that it’s better for colder climates - as in the additional frames would allow them to store more for winter. I am not sure the validity of that, apologies if I was off base.
They aren’t NOT filling out. It’s just slow. They have filled out almost 3 of the additional frames. Like, comb is 90% of the way down on 3 of them. They started on a 4th, but very little progress since the last time I checked (I checked a few weeks ago and today and it’s roughly the same shape and size with a little bit more filled out). The last frame is fully empty. No comb started at all.
They seem still lively and active, as I mentioned. I checked mid-day today, so many bees may be out working. So, I don’t want to make a comment about whether or not the population has decreased - I should be more diligent about checking at the same time in the evenings to gauge that.
There are PLENTY of pollinators around. I live in the country, I’ve actually not mowed this year. And, when I walk through the paddock next to the hive there are tons of wild bees and other insects that I can see and hear. I feel blessed and lucky to see fireflies this year in the fields as well. They should be in a place where they can thrive.
My question:
What is the normal time it takes a nuc to fill in the frames? Google said only a few weeks, so I want to make sure there’s not something else happening.
Will they fill this out in the next 1-2 months before the cold sets in?
Is there something I can do to help. How can I help them survive winter if it’s not all filled in?
Is it too late to mix up the frames? Maybe move a full frame NOT to the outside, which are the 2 frames not filling in, but right next to them? So, starting on the outside → empty frame then filled frame, then the regular nuc frames etc.
During a full-on nectar flow, that might be true. In most parts of the US, nectar stops flowing in July, so starting with a nucleus in June doesn’t give them much time to build comb. They will only do that when there is plenty of nectar.
Probably not without help, but it depends on the fall nectar flow in your area. Some beekeepers get quite a good flow in early fall.
Yes, make sure that the Flow super is off, then feed, feed, feed. For this time of year, get an in-hive feeder and use 2:1 or 5:3 sugar syrup. Although the math is a bit harder, I prefer 5:3, because it dissolves more easily.
Once the night time temperatures drop below 55°F, you will need to use a solid feed of some sort, either fondant patties, or dry white granulated sugar
Yes. Please don’t do that. It was too late to do that even in June, so you did the right thing. I would only do it in a crowded hive at the beginning of spring. It is a huge disruption for the colony, and they need the right resources to recover from it.
I will add a feeder. I’m concerned because I haven’t added the super yet because of the empty frame. I am confused because whenever I google how to winterize the hive to prepare for everything - I can’t get a clear answer on whether or not I can winter the hive with only the brood box? All the literature says they need honey stores, but clearly my hive won’t have any at this point. Do I add the super with a feeder in the wintertime? Do I need to order another brood box? I can’t find any reading for my particular situation.
I believe that @chau06 overwinters his hives with one brood box. However, I consider that a more advanced technique, as you have to keep assessing the food stores and see if they need more food. As you can’t open the hive when it is really cold, it means either using patties, which you can see, or learning how to heft the hive. So the answer is, yes it can be done, but it is harder than with double brood.
If you put a super on, it should only be to hold a feeder. It should have no frames in it, and it should go above the inner cover. You don’t want to add dead space in the cold months above the brood, or the bees will have to heat it, and probably will not do well.
In your climate, I would run double brood. I believe that @Eva does that, and she is in Pennsylvania, climate likely not too different from yours. I would order another brood box and put it on the hive next year when the hive is really full.
Let me know if any of this is not clear! There is so much confusing information on the internet, and so many different opinions in beekeeping. Eventually you will gain the experience to discover what works best for you, but meanwhile, those are my recommendations.
I agree with all of @Dawn_SD 's answers to your questions, so I’ll avoid answering them.
My comments are about the contents of the frames in the nuc & the current contents. Ideally you’d want every frame in the nuc to contain an average of 80% worker brood, or even higher. The more the better, on account that every bit of progress is dependent on the number of workers.
Bear in mind that workers only live for 6-7 weeks (except winter bees), so therefore we need to be seeing lots of worker brood during inspections to replace them.
I sold a 5 frame nuc to a bloke yesterday, that was above 80% worker brood, with a LOT of bees. That will assure this his colony will be off to a good start with spring at our doorstep.
@Dawn_SD This is all very helpful, I appreciate it! Pennsylvania climate is a good comparison for winter weather. I am farther north, next to the Canadian border in New England. We’ve just had such a brutal hot summer for this area, I’ve not really been paying attention to the weather until I looked at the calendar and realized we’re into August now.
It sounds like the course of action right now is to immediately make a 5:3 sugar water syrup and then in about a month, when it cools down, I will add the empty super (with the inner cover between the brood box and the super) in order to protect the bees. Do I continue to provide syrup? I assume I may have to switch to solid bee food like a pollen patty before it gets too cold since around November we will be under snow until March, but that would be added directly to the brood box, right? Then, in the spring, add another brood box over the current brood box.
Based on what @JeffH has added, I am concerned about whether or not my bees will make it through the winter. I definitely feel like the hive was much bigger/stronger when I first got it compared to now. the 6-7 weeks makes sense that the workers from when I first got the nuc 8 weeks ago were stronger and maybe I don’t have as many as needed now.
Experience has taught me to focus on the quality & amount of worker brood in a colony. Brood is basically the bee all & end all of beekeeping, in my view.
Brood can be added to a weak colony to give it a good boost. Also it can be removed from a strong colony in order to prevent a population explosion, when considering swarm prevention.
If you can find a beekeeper who is willing to sell a frame or two, full of good worker brood, that would be a great help.
Yes, and give to them using an in-hive feeder. Entrance feeding at this time of year is just asking for trouble from robbers.
That will not protect the bees. I meant that you should add the empty super only if you need to feed with a deep feeder that won’t otherwise fit under the roof. Once you switch to fondant or winter patties, you can take the super off - it was only meant as a spacer for the feeder.
You can continue with the same syrup until night temperatures drop to 55°F, then move to a solid feed. They won’t take syrup when it gets colder, because they can’t dehyrate it. Also, they can’t make and shape wax when temps get down that low.
Please do not use pollen patties. You can wait for night temps to get to 55°F to start them, as I mentioned above. There are specific winter patties and fondant available from many bee supply stores. You can press them onto the top bars of the brood box, it doesn’t matter if you squish them a bit. If they have waxed paper on them, leave it on. The bees will readily chew it off. Otherwise @Eva’s posts tell you how she uses white granulated sugar.
Feeding them now will help, so long as you have a live queen. You should also do a varroa mite count with sugar roll or alcohol wash and treat if needed.
I started feeding them syrup as soon as this was posted. After a day or so, when I was watching the hive, I noticed some larger bees outside of the hive (picture included).
Even yesterday, when it was 90* outside, there was a group bearding on the outside of the hive. But, nothing like a month ago when the whole front side of the hive was covered in bees.
Then, today I was out there, and it’s hot out, there’s almost no bees on the outside of the hive. Then I noticed there was a swarm of bees in a tree not too far from the hive.
Does this have to do with the syrup? I put on my gear and did a quick inspection. The inside of the hive, where the nuc was placed, is filling with honey. But, very few of the comb is capped.
Is there any way to get the swarm back to the hive? Is this due to the syrup? The swarm pic is how populated the hive used to be. The other pics are from the other day when I noticed larger bees outside the hive.
They may be overheating with such a tiny entrance. Is there any way you could open it to make it about 6" wide to improve their ventilation? I haven’t seen a Flow entrance reducer in person, but if you can’t do it with that, you can glue a bunch of craft sticks (popsicle sticks) together with PVA glue to the right height to jam in the entrance. You can then adjust them to the middle of the entrance to give them airflow on both sides, which will improve hive cooling and help them fan the water off the honey so that they can cap it.
Will they even survive since most of the hive left and is swarming in a tree? Can I get the swarm back into the hive?
I can easily remove the reducer. But, now I’m concerned that there’s not really any bees left and it doesn’t seem like a ton of brood in the hive now. There’s only a month if we’re lucky before the weather cools.
I wasn’t clear on how many bees were still in your hive. If there aren’t many, then opening the entrance up may not be the best idea.
I haven’t had a lot of luck putting a swarm back into the same hive that they left, but it is worth a try, particularly if there is now food in there to lure them in. Please let us know how it goes. I am sorry that the bees have thrown you such a curve ball!
I think there might be some confusion - they left/swarmed after the syrup was added. So, I added syrup and within a few days they left. I am almost certain they left yesterday.
Now I have only a small percentage of the hive remaining in the brood box. I don’t see any capped brood and when I inspected, I didn’t come across any obvious queen. I am about to go back out and see if I missed something.
I don’t have any extra brood boxes to place the swarm in, so I guess this swarm is lost since it’s a matter of hours to a couple of days before they move on.
At this point, is my hive lost? I don’t really have much I can do to save it outside of keeping on feeding syrup to the remaining bees in the hive - if they don’t leave to join the swarm. I am really at a loss of what to do here. The syrup didn’t help at this point - there’s not enough bees remaining to fill out the comb. They certainly haven’t started on the empty frame, which was the catalyst to me posting originally. Is there anything I can do to salvage this hive or just get a new nuc earlier next spring?
Hi Mattimoe, you seem to be getting a crash course in how tricky beekeeping can be! I took this quote from your post because I am wondering if your June nuc had started swarm preparations and could have swarmed once or twice before you saw the one in the tree just now.
From your pic those look like drones to me. Boy bees . Colonies have some in the population most of the time but they make more when it’s time to swarm.
When was that one taken? Could have been an actual swarm assembling.
Hopefully there is a queen recently emerged that will soon be leaving the hive each day for a few days to mate. At this time it’s best to keep inspections short and to a minimum, so I’d advise getting hold of a frame of brood in all stages plus nurse bees from another beek. Capped brood included. This gives the colony quick resources to rebound and make a new queen if needed.
If they don’t succeed with requeening, the colony will be kaput. But if you add the frame of brood (and then another one in a week if you don’t find a queen cell/repeat as needed) OR buy a mated queen from a supplier, your colony can still do fine. People overwinter small colonies in wooden nucleus boxes after all, so don’t be too hard on yourself!
Oh - and if that swarm is still there, put it into a beer box with a couple of frames until you can grab another brood box! If you get that far let us know, I will explain some choices after that. Good luck!!
I’m wondering if the colony has absconded, seeing as there is only a small percentage of bees left. If the colony swarmed, there should be queen cells on the brood frames. Did you see any of those? Plus half of the colony should remain.
If the colony has absconded, it could be on account of the roof getting too hot on those 90deg days. As Dawn pointed out, the entrance could be too small, which also wouldn’t help.
We have caught swarms in cardboard fruit boxes temporarily, with frames of brood wedged in to help hold the colony. A beer box, as Eva suggested might be even better
