The Honey Factory

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My remaining hive is definitely dead.
My husband saw bees all over it the other day, but I suspected robber bees and was right.
I've looked all over for these robber bees, as I expect that they are not far away and are probably from one of my swarmed hives, but I haven't found them yet. We are going to search more when it gets warmer outside. It is 16'F today right now.
Anyway, I have a package of bees coming April 25th and a Queen coming May 16th. I think that gives the package time for me to start a nuc with some brood from the packages since I have drawn out comb already.
 
BirdsBeesTrees said:
My remaining hive is definitely dead.
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Sorry you lost your last hive. Im all too familiar with total losses in my early years.
BirdsBeesTrees said:
Anyway, I have a package of bees coming April 25th and a Queen coming May 16th. I think that gives the package time for me to start a nuc with some brood from the packages since I have drawn out comb already.
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Thats kind of pushing it. If the queen is released on the 28th or the 29th that will give you 17 day old brood to make a split with and the older package bees will want to fly back leaving you with a weak split. But it might work out with some open brood and moving the split a few miles away and bringing them back after the new queen has a solid brood pattern and workers are bringing in pollen. If you do a direct release of the package queen you could have 21 day emerging brood to push in cage your new queen and she will be accepted quickly.
 
Apis mellifera said:
Bees look great!! Pop the lid on the hive that may be empty. The dead bees being ignored on the landing board makes me think your other hives might be robbing it out. The bees having trouble taking off looks like they are loaded up with honey. Maybe not, just guessing.
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I peeked in there this morning before the bees started flying and there were a lot of bees inside the hive. After fall the hive was empty of bees and there was very little honey left in the hive.

My thoughts are also that the good Italian hive is robbing it but that doesn't completely correlate with why the bees are staying in it overnight.
 
So question:

How common is it for your purchased bees to mix with wild bees? Or a queen to get flown by wild drones? Or for them to go on a wander and not come back? Or become "wild"?
 
ColtHandorf said:
So question:

How common is it for your purchased bees to mix with wild bees? Or a queen to get flown by wild drones? Or for them to go on a wander and not come back? Or become "wild"?
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Depends on where you live. There are few bees in my area. Most of the "wild" honeybees here are from my own bees that swarmed over the years. At one time I was using a variety that was very susceptible to swarming.

Purchased bees typically come with an already mated queen. They will not get bred by wild drones.

There are a number of reasons that bees can abandon a hive. One of the reasons is if you let them completely fill the hive and don't provide them any expansion room.
 
R2elk said:
I peeked in there this morning before the bees started flying and there were a lot of bees inside the hive. After fall the hive was empty of bees and there was very little honey left in the hive.

My thoughts are also that the good Italian hive is robbing it but that doesn't completely correlate with why the bees are staying in it overnight.
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It is windy, overcast and chilly where the bee hives are. The bees are not flying today.

The supposedly empty hive.
20220214_140143.jpg

Last fall the hive was void of bees and the honey stores were gone. There are frames of honey in there now.
 
R2elk said:
It is windy, overcast and chilly where the bee hives are. The bees are not flying today.

The supposedly empty hive.
View attachment 2994089
Last fall the hive was void of bees and the honeym stores were gone. There are frames of honey in there now.
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Maybe you have a worker that decided she wanted to be a queen in there. You can look forward to a million drones in a month…

:gig:gig:gig:gig:gig
 

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