9:30AM / 64 degrees / Sunny
This morning I looked out and noticed the nuc starting to swarm. This was the queen along with the nurse bees and worker bees I took from Christin's hive last week as I caught them trying to swarm.
It is really strange they are trying to swarm again as I stepped in and took them from the original hive and moved them 30 miles away. This should have sufficed as the swarm they tried to do a week earlier. The swarm left and then returned to the nuc. I once again found the queen on the table the nuc was sitting on. This time I moved all bees into a normal sized 10 frame hive. There should be plenty of room for these bees now.
Within an hour, they were swarming again (3rd time in a week they tried to swarm). The swarm once again returned to the hive. I found and captured the queen on the ground in front of the hive.
Something must be wrong with the queen for her to try to swarm 3 times and each time she was unable to fly,
There is one way to remedy an urge to swarm after all other ways failed; remove the queen from the hive and kill her. Without a queen, the colony will create a new queen.
After I killed the queen, I performed a field dissection of her and noticed the spermatheca was milky white in color. This indicates a failing or old queen. The decision to remove her was correct.
At this time the 3rd hive is queenless. I am hoping a new queen will develop within days.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Christin's Swarm - Going to be our 3rd Hive (March 17)
The temperature was in the mid 70’s and sunny.
I went to the bee yard today to mow. Luckily, I took everything I needed for any bee activity. Upon arrival, the bees in Christin's hive looked normal. 45 minutes later, they were in a full swarm. It looked like a cyclonic cloud of bees exiting the hive and spiraling into the sky. In a swarm about 60% of the bees leave the hive in search of a new home. The swarm landed on a nearby cedar tree and within 15 minutes all were returning back to the hive. This is very strange and indicates the queen never left with the swarm.
Since they wanted to swarm, I decided to split the hive by putting the queen, frames of eggs, open and capped larvae and food in a 5 frame nuc box and take back to my house in Charlotte. By splitting the hive and moving the nuc to a location greater than 3 miles away, this simulates the swarm they were trying to do (a controlled swarm). This alleviates hive congestion, and a new queen will hatch in the old hive and take over. The new queen will set out to mate and start laying eggs within 2 weeks.
Things I noticed:
I returned to Charlotte with the nuc and plan on raising this into our 3rd hive.
I went to the bee yard today to mow. Luckily, I took everything I needed for any bee activity. Upon arrival, the bees in Christin's hive looked normal. 45 minutes later, they were in a full swarm. It looked like a cyclonic cloud of bees exiting the hive and spiraling into the sky. In a swarm about 60% of the bees leave the hive in search of a new home. The swarm landed on a nearby cedar tree and within 15 minutes all were returning back to the hive. This is very strange and indicates the queen never left with the swarm.
Since they wanted to swarm, I decided to split the hive by putting the queen, frames of eggs, open and capped larvae and food in a 5 frame nuc box and take back to my house in Charlotte. By splitting the hive and moving the nuc to a location greater than 3 miles away, this simulates the swarm they were trying to do (a controlled swarm). This alleviates hive congestion, and a new queen will hatch in the old hive and take over. The new queen will set out to mate and start laying eggs within 2 weeks.
Things I noticed:
· The hive was not overpopulated, therefore not sure why they wanted to swarm as there was plenty of space in the hive to lay eggs.
· The pattern of eggs / brood was spotty and only a few eggs were seen. This means the queen may be failing.
· Many supercedure queen cells were found indicating the bees wanted the old queen to leave.
· I found the queen on the ground about 5 feet in front of the hive. She is unable to fly for some reason.
I returned to Charlotte with the nuc and plan on raising this into our 3rd hive.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Queen Issues!! Christin's Hive (March 11)
Today we inspected our hives to rearrange the frames and add a honey super to better give the bees more room during their population spring growth. An overcrowded hive typically results in a swarm. That means we could lose up to 60% of our bees and the remaining small population of bees that stay would not be enough to produce a surplus of honey this year for us to harvest.
My hive looked in great shape to date. Plenty of food, queen laying plenty of eggs ina nice pattern and the hive was not over crowded.
Christin's hive has a few issues we need to address.
We saw 2 supercedure queen cells and several swarm cells. Both are large cells that look like a peanut shell. Supercedure cells are located in the center of a frame, swarm cells are located on the bottom of a frame.
Here is a picture of swarm cells:
Supercedure cells are made when the hive thinks the current queen is not producing as much as they would like. This can be because her pheromones are weak, or she is just becoming older or sick and not doing well. But something is prompting them to make a new queen for the hive
Swarm cells are queen cells that hang from the bottom of a frame. These are created when the colony is overcrowded and they are prepping for a swarm. Once queen will leave with 60% of the colony, one queen will stay in the hive.
We know the hive is not overcrowded, so are they truly swarm cells? What may be happening is that the swarm cells are really emergency queen cells. If the supercedure cells do not produce a queen, they have a backup plan with the others they created.
Yesterday we decided to cut out and remove these additional queen cells. The reason we did is because in bee school they mentioned this practice several times to prevent or reduce the chance of swarming. Well, after doing this and discussing with our mentor, this probably was not the best things to do. All is not lost though and we can come out better in the end if we just re-queen in a week.
Our action plan:
We plan to go back in one week to check on things again. If the current queen is not laying eggs, there is no way the worker bees can make a new queen because there will be no fresh larvae. So we will buy a new mated queen that is actively laying, remove the old queen, and introduce the new queen.
If the worker bees have already started making new supercedure cells, we have the option to let nature take its course, and they will raise a new queen on their own. Keep in mind we will lose almost 3 weeks of no population buildup if they raise a queen on their own. It takes approx. 27 days for a new queen to develop from an egg, hatch, mate and start laying eggs of her own.
There are issues with that as well.
The new queen will be a virgin queen that needs to leave the hive to mate with several drone bees. Once she leaves the hive she is vulnerable to injury, getting lost, or eaten by birds. If that happens we have no queen and will have to purchase a new one anyways.
The other issue is that once she is in her mating flight the drones that mate with her may be from her own gene pool. Therefore creating an inbred queen. This can result in offspring that are weak or more susceptible to disease.
I am currently leaning towards just re-queening in a week and moving on. I have read and heard it is best practice to re-queen each year. This ensures the best chance of always having a strong laying queen.
My hive looked in great shape to date. Plenty of food, queen laying plenty of eggs ina nice pattern and the hive was not over crowded.
Christin's hive has a few issues we need to address.
We saw 2 supercedure queen cells and several swarm cells. Both are large cells that look like a peanut shell. Supercedure cells are located in the center of a frame, swarm cells are located on the bottom of a frame.
Here is a picture of swarm cells:
Swarm cells are queen cells that hang from the bottom of a frame. These are created when the colony is overcrowded and they are prepping for a swarm. Once queen will leave with 60% of the colony, one queen will stay in the hive.
We know the hive is not overcrowded, so are they truly swarm cells? What may be happening is that the swarm cells are really emergency queen cells. If the supercedure cells do not produce a queen, they have a backup plan with the others they created.
Yesterday we decided to cut out and remove these additional queen cells. The reason we did is because in bee school they mentioned this practice several times to prevent or reduce the chance of swarming. Well, after doing this and discussing with our mentor, this probably was not the best things to do. All is not lost though and we can come out better in the end if we just re-queen in a week.
Our action plan:
We plan to go back in one week to check on things again. If the current queen is not laying eggs, there is no way the worker bees can make a new queen because there will be no fresh larvae. So we will buy a new mated queen that is actively laying, remove the old queen, and introduce the new queen.
If the worker bees have already started making new supercedure cells, we have the option to let nature take its course, and they will raise a new queen on their own. Keep in mind we will lose almost 3 weeks of no population buildup if they raise a queen on their own. It takes approx. 27 days for a new queen to develop from an egg, hatch, mate and start laying eggs of her own.
There are issues with that as well.
The new queen will be a virgin queen that needs to leave the hive to mate with several drone bees. Once she leaves the hive she is vulnerable to injury, getting lost, or eaten by birds. If that happens we have no queen and will have to purchase a new one anyways.
The other issue is that once she is in her mating flight the drones that mate with her may be from her own gene pool. Therefore creating an inbred queen. This can result in offspring that are weak or more susceptible to disease.
I am currently leaning towards just re-queening in a week and moving on. I have read and heard it is best practice to re-queen each year. This ensures the best chance of always having a strong laying queen.
Friday, March 2, 2012
1st Hive Inspection of 2012 (March 1)
This week I made a quick inspection on both hives. The temperature was near 80 degrees so it was a great time to see what has been going on for the past several months. Overall the hives were very healthy. Lots of eggs, larvae, capped brood, pollen and capped honey stores.
This tells me the Queen is still alive and healthy, the worker bees are finding a pollen source and they are gearing up for the nectar flow.
Here are a few pictures documenting what I saw in Christin's hive.
It was obvious the bees were eager to get out and collect pollen on a warm day. Here is a bee returning with pollen.
This frame shows the classic "rainbow" pattern. The pattern shows capped brood at the bottom, above that is pollen and in the top corners and across the top is capped honey. The food is never too far away making it easy to feed the larvae.
During the inspection I found the Queen!! I marked her last year with a white dot of paint to make her easier to spot during inspections. You can see all of the capped brood around her. This is the next generation of worker bees that will hatch shortly.
Lastly, I wanted to show the amount of bees in this hive. Keep in mind we have not hit the peak of the amount of bees we can expect in this hive in 4 -6 more weeks. The mild winter tricked the Queen into never truly stopping egg laying.
This tells me the Queen is still alive and healthy, the worker bees are finding a pollen source and they are gearing up for the nectar flow.
Here are a few pictures documenting what I saw in Christin's hive.
It was obvious the bees were eager to get out and collect pollen on a warm day. Here is a bee returning with pollen.
This frame shows the classic "rainbow" pattern. The pattern shows capped brood at the bottom, above that is pollen and in the top corners and across the top is capped honey. The food is never too far away making it easy to feed the larvae.
During the inspection I found the Queen!! I marked her last year with a white dot of paint to make her easier to spot during inspections. You can see all of the capped brood around her. This is the next generation of worker bees that will hatch shortly.
Lastly, I wanted to show the amount of bees in this hive. Keep in mind we have not hit the peak of the amount of bees we can expect in this hive in 4 -6 more weeks. The mild winter tricked the Queen into never truly stopping egg laying.
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