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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Joan Kalnitsky <jkalnits AT embarqmail.com>
  • To: "Orange Co Beekeepers " <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] looking for ideas
  • Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 09:25:39 -0400 (EDT)


Local Beekeepers,
  We have a very strange phenomenon going on in one of our colonies.  We started the colony from a nuc the second week of June.  The nuc was light compared to others we have started, but the queen was there and laying.  When we moved the bees into their new home we added a frame of honey on each end of the hive body and the other three frames were empty but drawn out.  We put the 5 frames of the nuc in the order they came, in the middle, with either 2 or three frames on either side. Since then the queen has continued to lay, but the colony is not growing.  The queen seems to only want to lay on 3 of the 5 frames she came with.  Two weeks ago we put an empty, but drawn out frame next to the frame she lays on the most.  2 weeks later, she has not laid a single egg in the frame.  Actually I should say no egg has developed into larvae because neither of us can see the eggs. but the bees are filling the frame with nectar, while 3 out of the 5 original frames rotate larvae, capped brood, open, etc.  2 of the 3 frames the queen lays in are black plastic.  We fed the colony 1/1 sugar/water from the time it arrived until about 4 weeks ago when we put a super full of honey on top of the hive body.  Three weeks ago we did a sugar shake and got all but no mites. This past week we put in another 2 empty but drawn out frames one on each side of the frames she lays on, but do not have high hopes.  Our concern is the colony is not growing and we do not think it is strong enough to make it through the winter at this static size.  Any ideas what could be going on???????
  Thanks in advance,
  Joan K




  • [ocba] looking for ideas, Joan Kalnitsky, 09/07/2016

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