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  • From: Hamsiba Family <hamsibas AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Can this hive be saved?
  • Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 17:34:36 -0400

Thanks everyone. I will report back in a few weeks

On Jul 20, 2015 5:23 PM, "Walter Starks" <walterstarks AT icloud.com> wrote:
David Bailey probably has some queens. I think he usually tries to keep a few in stock.

______

Walter




Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 20, 2015, at 4:23 PM, Hamsiba Family <hamsibas AT gmail.com> wrote:

Randall,

Thanks for your thoughts. There is really just some older looking capped worker (tight pattern) and an equal amount of capped drone brood (some is more scattered). Only a little bit of very scattered open brood, which looks more like laying workers to me.

Frank Wyatt says he is just making queens for himself now, do you have a second source?  At this point any queen will do.

I may still throw a frame or two of eggs and open brood in if only to fend off laying workers again.

Thanks, Brad

On Jul 20, 2015 12:33 PM, "Randall Austin" <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:
Brad,

If you've got capped & open worker brood, then I wouldn't worry about the laying workers. I would assume/hope that the original combine took care of that. I think I would buy a new queen and see how the bees react to her in the cage. If they aggressively cling to it, refusing to be lightly brushed off, then you have issues (maybe a virgin queen running around?). But if they act like they love her, then requeen the hive with her. It's all a learning experience, right?

Randall

On 7/20/2015 11:56 AM, Hamsiba Family wrote:
Laying workers done got me again (or I shot myself in the foot).

We had two hives, two deeps each.  One ended up with laying workers. we reduced the hives to a single deep each, freezing some drone frames from the bad one as well as some good food frames.

We newspaper combined the laying worker box atop the queenright box on 7/6.  A few days later, we defrosted 8 frames of food and frozen drone and placed it atop the two combined boxes.  I figured we would be splitting a successful combine in another week from today.

Today we inspected, day 14.  We found 3 deeps of queenless colony.  A very small bit of open brood.  Some old caped worker brood in nice tight formations and about an equal amount of capped drone, much of the drone scattershot around the upper frames.  We also found one single occupied queen cell that was torn open on removing the fame to inspect.

I suspect that either the laying workers won or we did in our queen at the combine (14 days ago, well within the 9-20 day window for still seeing the capped worker brood).  Either way, the single queen cell is no longer sealed and may have not had a good queen anyway.

At this point, I am not willing to spend another of my two remaining colonies to try another combine.  I confess I am a bit discouraged! I am told laying workers have the effect on newer beekeepers.  Must be a lack of open brood pheremone! 

Perhaps I could move a frame or two of eggs and brood from a good colony, or is that too little too late?  I did not see any eggs, though I did not scrutinize things well enough to say there were none, these bees were rather unhappy bees today.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Brad Kosiba


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