A BEE thread....for those interested in beekeeping.

[Beekissed]

This is all very educational and I'm so glad you all brought your trouble-shooting questions to this thread! I am learning so much and I hope, if you find out what the problems are, you will report here about what you found and if any of the advice given here was helpful.

Lot of new beeks starting out this year and the beek forums don't move as quickly as this one~ with almost immediate answers and suggestions. Sometimes, time is of the essence!

 

[JP33]

Quote:
I'm a little concerned that they may not have enough feed as they were just set up as you say but then you had to go back in and embed the wire.

Did you have to rework each frame? Did you notice if they had any capped honey/sugar honey?

If they don't have any food stored and they are trying to maintain cluster (what are your daytime temps?) you might have to emergency feed. (table sugar)

What is your forecast for the next week?


...JP

 

[SurprisingWoman]

Quote:
JP, they have food. Thanks for checking though.

 

[Dragonfly Ranch]

We received our bees for two new hives on 4-10-10, one Italian Queen and one from a strain in Minnesota - not sure what she was called. The weather was bad and it took a few days to get them out there. But nonetheless we did and things seemed to be going fine. Yesterday, my husband checked for the queens and the Minnesota queen seems to be gone. He checked twice and this hive is moving along a lot slower then the other. Talked to the guy we got the bees from and he said "Re-queening" will probably not work. The only suggestion that he had was to move one of the brooding frames from the other hive and see if they can raise a new queen. Short of that the hive will just die out.

Does anyone have any other suggestions. Of course as newbies we hate the thought of loosing a whole hive so early on in the process.

Sandee

 

[sgtmom52]

Quote:
You can move a brood frame from the other hive but it must have eggs (3 days old or less) in it. They can only raise a new queen from an egg not from larva. Put the frame in the center of the brood area of the queenless hive.

Before you do this you may want to recheck the hive again ~ in addition to looking for the queen look for eggs ~ if you find eggs the queen has been there within the last 3 days. It is not always easy to find the queen, esp if she is not marked ~ much easier to see the eggs.

Good Luck!

 

[Mr_Jeff]

The queen can be difficult to locate, especially if you are looking for her. The trick is to not try so hard to find her, or not look for her at all. As you are examining frames she will just come walking by. Kind of like how a watched pot doesn't boil. Look, instead, for evidence that she is around like eggs and larva. Single eggs in the bottom of the cell is a good indication that she is still around.

 

[heritagebirds]

When is a good time to move the entrance reducer? Also, How many frames of bees do you need before adding a second hive body? Thank you all.

 

[Mr_Jeff]

When they have most of the frames drawn(depends on size of your hives) give them another hive body so they dont get crowded. If they run out of space, they could backfill honey into brood cells. Remove the entrance reducer when it becomes a hindrance to air traffic control in front of the hive.

 

[heritagebirds]

Well, they kind of pile up at the door a little bit. I'll have to check on them, I've got 1 deep w/10 frames and another deep w/10 to go on top. They sure are busy!

 

[PotterWatch]

Going to help a friend get another swarm today. Hope it's an easy one!