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ocba - Re: [ocba] Supersedures

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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Brian and Lanette Fee" <fee AT sprintmail.com>
  • To: "'Harry Davis'" <harryfd AT hotmail.com>, <lewis AT hivebody.com>, <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Supersedures
  • Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:36:23 -0400

Just my two cents, but I think the bee producers have had the same kind of winter we had – a very hard one on the bees.    We’ve always had pretty good luck with packages before.  We got two packages this time around.  From one of the packages we never saw eggs.  There must have been some because now there are supersedure cells and a small amount of brood.  In the second package we saw a reasonable number of eggs last time we went in them.  This time, we did see more eggs and some brood, capped and uncapped, but not near as many eggs nor as much brood as I think there should be.  Each of these hives were given an empty brood chamber and a honey super with a fair amount of honey in each and some pollen.  In a normal year, these two packages would be going strong.  It’s just not a normal year.  It will take these guys a while to get up to speed and more care in management than usual.

Lanette

 

From: ocba-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:ocba-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Harry Davis
Sent: Saturday, April 24, 2010 2:18 PM
To: lewis AT hivebody.com; ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [ocba] Supersedures

 

We are "newbees" who recently completed the class and started with two hives.

We did an inspection today.  One colony that we thought was the stronger one had about six supersedure cells.  They were all in the center of frames.  Beekeeping for Dummies says that this could mean you have a queen that is not performing up to par.  Since this is a new hive with a new package and new queen, could this mean she did not survive?  We know she was released from the cage.
The book recommends that you order a new queen. 
We found lots of drawn comb, nectar and/or sugar syrup, some capped but no signs that we could find of eggs and larvae.  It is possible we could not see the eggs but most of the open cells appeared to have nectar or pollen.

In the second hive we found capped brood and larvae and one frame had the arch of capped honey.  It has less drawn comb but seems to be doing better. 

Any suggestions?

thanks,
Marilyn and Harry




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