Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

ocba - Re: [ocba] low bee count-- now what to do?

ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: chloe palenchar <cpalenchar AT hotmail.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] low bee count-- now what to do?
  • Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 22:08:47 -0500

Chloe,

Don't forget that we are in the middle of winter, even though we are having a great break for a few days. If you were to borrow brood from the strong hive to put in the weak hive, the weak hive won't be able to keep the extra brood warm and it will just freeze to death.

I recommend doing one of two things, depending on how you assess what you are seeing:

1) If the weak hive seems like it has a greater than zero chance of surviving, don't do anything with it at this time of year. Come March it will either still be hanging on or it will have passed completely away. In March your options are greatly increased and your chance of success is also.

2) If the weak hive truly has only about a hundred bees but has lots of honey, go ahead and count them as a loss. Dump the bees in front of the strong hive --- they'll drift in. Remove the weak hive from its old location so the dumped bees go into the strong hive instead of going back to their old home. Take the good honey frames and freeze them for a few days to kill any wax moth or hive beetle eggs/larvae. You can feed these honey frames back to your strong hive later, or extract them.  Take the empty frames and set them outside where they are exposed to light, air and freezing night temperatures.

We all hate to lose hives but if you keep bees for more than a couple of years, you WILL have losses; it's all part of the beekeeping experience. Fortunately you have a strong second hive so you are doing pretty good.

Randall Austin


On 1/12/2013 5:55 PM, chloe palenchar wrote:
BAY150-W18286475CB2F216E48529BC2280 AT phx.gbl" type="cite">
I joined the crowd and inspected my hives this weekend. They were both brand new from packages last spring, and I thought both went into the winter reasonably strong. However, when I opened hive number 1, I found maybe 100 bees, and after looking more closely I saw they were all with their queen. I saw some capped brood, maybe 20-30 cells, but no other larva activity. There was close to a full box of honey still in the hive (probably with so few bees, they don't eat much). In the bottom box I found no bees, and some of the cells had a substance in them that I didn't recognize-- it looked sort of jelly like; was it small hive beetle larvas? There were many adult hive beetles running around the hive, but I didn't see any goo outside of the cells.

Opening hive number 2, I found tons and tons of bees. I looked through the top box, and they have a lot of honey left too. I started to try to go into the bottom box, but the sun was going down and so was the bees' disposition, so I closed everything up for the night.

What should I do management wise? If I get into the bottom box of hive number 2, I was thinking I might find some brood that I could borrow. Should I even bother? Could taking brood set back hive number 2 too much? It seems likely that something is up with hive number 1, though I don't know what. If it is hive beetle larva in the frames of hive number 1, what do I do? Sunlight? Freezer? I guess I should also take the second box away from hive number 1, but I do need a refresher on how you're supposed to store woodenware/frames.

Any other suggestions greatly appreciated.

thanks,

chloe


_________________________________________
ocba mailing list | North Carolina Beekeeping| http://www.theocba.org/
Manage Your Subscription: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ocba/




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page