Ok, great, that’s clear.
Since this hive has been decimated, after I do the 3 steps you said, what if I merged the split with the mother hive to give them some numbers and a queen. The split is 2 montgs old now and nice and strong and built up.
With the number of bees left in the sick Hive, I’m not sure it’d last a month waiting for a queen to hatch and mate.
Thanks again mate, really appreciate the advice.
Cheers
Ron
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What I would do is use the strong splits as resource hives. That first frame of brood, especially if it was full of brood in all stages will be a good boost to the colony which can be followed up with another one in a couple of weeks time, if needed.
I’m addicted to queens, that’s why I seize any opportunity to make more.
When it’s all sorted out, see how many frames the bees occupy. In most of my nucs, the bees only occupy 2-3 frames.
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So sorry Ron! That was a dramatic turn of events 
- I’m bummed to hear it (but I’m also chuckling over the image of the new queen heading straight for the exit 
)
Jeff your procedure is sure to bring about good results.I’ve read your instructions on this before but this time I took a screenshot and will save it to my files just in case! I would definitely aspire to follow it if I were to find myself in your shoes Ron, but as a small-time beek I could see being daunted by the uncertainty and extra time it would take. I might prefer to combine the bees from the queenless hive into the strong split, deal with the defunct equipment over time and look to split the combined hive again if the conditions are good. I suppose it would depend on the size of my apiary at the time as well.
I’m tagging @claire_c in case this info is helpful in your situation 
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Thanks for tagging me, Eva. I found someone in San Diego who can give me a frame of brood. My plan is to replace the frames in the bottom box that have the chewed out drone brood with fresh frames and buy a new mated queen.
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Hi Ron, first thing this morning I was going to offer for you to ring me so as to discuss the matter further. However I see that Eva has offered an alternative strategy. You may choose to go down that path.
I have a few points to remind you of.
- We still have half of spring & all of summer for the nucs to buildup in.
- I believe that you are advanced enough as a beekeeper for the strategy I outlined to be undertaken.
- I have personal experience of bees in a laying worker colony attacking a queen during a combine with newspaper.
- You really need to deal with & sort out the laying workers before doing anything else.
- You need to deal with that ugly comb sooner, rather than later, because it will attract hive beetles. Plus that honey at the tops of the frames can be salvaged for personal use.
- If you don’t have spare brood boxes for Step 1 of my laying worker strategy, you can simply have the frames on standby so that you can use the original brood box as soon as you finish shaking the bees onto the ground. When you place it back with the new frames, the cloud of bees, minus the laying worker/s will be waiting to move straight in.
Feel free to phone me any time. My number is easy to find, or you can pm me.
cheers for now.
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Hi Jeff, just wanted to make clear that I see your strategy as the optimal one - but some folks (like me, a ‘small-time beek’ rather than a professional one 
) aren’t guaranteed to have enough time and focus to carry it out because of other work, regardless of skill.
@RonM looking back on my post, I am sorry if I sounded like I was doubting your ability! I was thinking about having a situation like that unfold during a time when my work commitments were too demanding to handle a multi step solution.
Cheers guys
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All good Eva, I’m in the same boat with work commitments. My other issue is impatience. I’d rather combine 2 hives (since I still have the split I did from this hive) and get them back to speed fast, rather than wait a whole month while they make a new queen, assuming that works out with the hive in a perilous state.
Is all happening over the weekend, so I’ll report back.
Cheers
Ron
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Hi Eva, I must confess that I don’t consider folks work commitments when making suggestions. I followed the thread & gave solutions based on my own trials, tribulations & errors.
cheers
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Ron is lucky you’re a phone call away! I’m curious about item 3 in your post, as it made me realize that my success with combining queenless bees with a queen right colony might’ve been due to not having laying workers yet.
What do you think of lengthening the combine process as a way to prevent regicide in that situation? Such as placing a screen barrier then newspaper between the boxes, so when the queenless bees chew through the paper they are still separated by the screen, and have more protected ‘contact’ time. Would that enable queen pheromone to change laying workers back to normal?
Hi Eva, I think that solution would certainly have merit, however it also takes time to implement with multiple steps. Ron is also in the southern hemisphere halfway through spring. To my mind I just can’t get my head around combining hives halfway through spring, while just yesterday I got called out to a swarm. Bees are building up their populations & getting ready to swarm.
Ron did use the words “hive in a perilous state”. I tried to assure him that it can be rectified with a few easy steps.
Ron also said “Lucky I didn’t sell the hives I made off the splits yet”. That indicates that he is using his bees to generate an income.
Ron did say “HELP”, with some sad face emojis 
I’m going to do Jeff’s #4 and #5.
ok everybody, gather round, here’s an update for those still playing at home.
there are 2 hive’s i’m talking about
Yellow - this is the one with all the debris on the landing board and the sickest
Blue - Had some chalk brood
YELLOW
We opened it on saturday and it was in a bit of a state. the bees had chewed away a lot of comb to get at beetle larvae and there was a lot of chalk brood too. we reduced it to just the brood box.
Population is actually still pretty good but there were laying workers.
I got 2 frames of brood from the split that actually came from that hive a couple of months ago (it was in my parents yard).
i did Jeffs’s laying worker strategy. Took all the frames out of the hive (they were all pretty crap) and took the hive off it’s stand.
i put a new hive in it’s place and put the 2 frames, one of which contained eggs, from the split along with new frames with foundation and 2 stickies. I took the old sick hive about 30m away and shook all the bees of it.
I bagged all the sick comb and later cleaned the broodbox and bottom board for reuse at a later date.
I was planning to combine the split with the weakened hive, but have rethought that (i bow to Jeff’s greater knowledge) the populations was pretty good and with all healthy frames now in the hive, i think they should be ok now that they have eggs to work with.
The activity at the front looks great today.
BLUE HIVE
This one had some chalkbrood and there was a little debris appearing on the landing board yesterday so was a little nervous that we were going to find the same thing inside. Last week we reduced it to just the brood box.
Happily, the chalkbrood hadn’t worsened since last weekend, they seem to be soring it out.
there was only one frame that looked a little concerning. saw a few beetle larvae and chalk, so we removed that frame and replaced it with a fresh one. There was a huge queen cell which had just hatched, it still had the little flap where she’d emerged, and there was one other queen cell still sealed. we left that one there as insurance.
So as we await the hopeful return of the hatched queen, this one looks like the bees are taking care of business.
Not sure what’s going on with all the chalkbrood in the area. The 2 hives i have temporarily put in my parents yard also have some, as well as my two here.
so that’s where i’m at for now. I think things back are on track, but still crossing fingers.
cheers
Ron
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Hi Ron, well done. You’ll just need to check that hive next weekend, or after 4 days to make sure they are building emergency queens or that the laying worker didn’t follow the bees back, which is what happened to me once, as I mentioned on the phone.
I see that brood you were talking about in the other thread you created earlier. Seeing brood in Flow frames (to my mind) is always a reminder to physically inspect the frames before harvesting from them.
My son found brood above a QE in one of his hives. He says he’ll be away for a couple of months. Consequently it’s my job to rectify that in the not too distant future.
PS maybe that wasn’t the brood you were talking about. Upon zooming in on it, it no longer looks like brood.
Did you delete your comment on the other thread because you changed your mind?
I’m pretty sure there wasn’t any brood in that frame, but since it’s still off the hive I will definately revisit it.
Cheers
Ron
Hi Ron, yes that’s the reason why I deleted the other comment. To me it looks like brood when looking at the photo, however when zooming in on it, it looks like capped honey, which is likely what it is. All that wet appearance at the top of that frame (which is probably what threw me out) can be disturbing if it wasn’t caused by you or your wife during handling.
Everything in a hive has a dry appearance. Whenever we see a wet appearance inside a hive that wasn’t caused by us, it will be a dead give-away of beetle activity.
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The wetness was definately as result of me mucking around, so all good on that count.
Ron
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That’s good news Ron.
Getting back to the subject of whether a colony is strong enough to survive or not, I thought of you while watching a video of a Cambodian beekeeper last night propagating queen bees. I tried to find it again, which is a 35 minute video. I found this 11 minute video, which shows the beekeeper putting a queen cell into a VERY small queenless colony. I’ve seen this video before I think, because I remember seeing the queens emerging.
cheers
PS you only need to watch the first minute because the rest of the video is queens emerging.
In the video I watched last night, it shows him making those little bamboo spear queen cup bases, plus making the wax queen cups, as well as waxing them onto the queen frame. As well as grafting, then at the end, placing the queen cells into queenless colonies.
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Hi @RonM , how did the colonies end up?
Hi Fred, thanks for the reminder.
There’s actually a second thread with this subject, here is a link. I just put up an update.
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