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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: James Latimer <PipesNC AT live.com>
  • To: English Family <englishfamily06 AT gmail.com>, "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] queen question/request
  • Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 18:31:53 +0000

Melissa,

This sounds like a perfect scenario for combining a weak hive with a strong hive to ensure success of at least 1 over the winter.  If you have a weak failing hive and a hive you are worried about over wintering, but looks good now.  These are the hives to combine. 


I have tried and recommend the newspaper combine.  Open the good hive, place a sheet of newspaper on the top of the frames.  Place a few slits in the paper with your hive tool to help the bees eat through the paper.  Add the weak (trouble some, strange, unsure) hive on top of the paper, then add the cover or feeder\cover.  Check in a few days the bees should be intermingling, remove any extra newspaper from the hive.  For increased success, do not do this with 2 weak hives, but do with a weak hive and a good hive.


Randal speaks about this in the following article you will want to focus on Leg 3 - Cull Lousy hives.

https://www.baileybeesupply.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/controlling_winter_losses.pdf


Keep on Keeping on,

Jamie


www.baileybeesupply.com
Controlling Winter Losses September 1, 2014 Page 1 Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York - “Richard III” by Bill Shakespeare




From: ocba <ocba-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org> on behalf of English Family <englishfamily06 AT gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2016 2:17 PM
To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [ocba] queen question/request
 
Hi everyone,

I have a queen that has been completely baffling me the last few weeks.   About 5 weeks ago I checked the hive, all was well, eggs, brood, queen found, good pattern etc.  Strong, calm hive.  I went about 3 weeks before I could check again.  Only a few sparse eggs, no queen spotted (checked twice on two different days and she is marked), mostly drone brood, a few eggs on the side of cells, and only late stage worker brood.  Based on what I saw, I figured I had the beginnings of a laying worker hive.  That was last week.  Checked today with the intentions of making one last sweep and then combining or dumping the hive.  However, the bees were super calm, and low and behold the queen was spotted.  She is considerably smaller than she used to be, but it is the original queen.  A few empty queen cups, no queen cells.  Still no worker brood, mostly drone brood and open drone brood.  (also, varroa counts were <2 with alcohol test a week ago and I have not treated yet for varroa)

This is such a drastic turn around from what was going on a few weeks ago.  I am thinking I need to re-queen?  Which may be a challenge considering the time of year, finding a mated queen and all.  So I thought I would reach out and see if anyone has any suggestions, or possibly a queen they need a home for?  I do have another hive and could offer some eggs/brood but my thought is it will be too late for them to raise and mate a virgin queen to recover the population by winter.  Thoughts? 

Thanks
Melissa



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