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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Elizabeth Pratson <epratson AT gmail.com>
  • To: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] trying to save a hive
  • Date: Mon, 8 May 2017 11:08:18 -0400

Hello beekeepers, I wanted to get some feedback or advice on one of my hives
from anyone willing to give it. This hive was my strongest hive going into
the year (2 deeps with a super). Her is it’s history:

4/5 - saw a dozen or so swarm cells which I squished and increased space in
hive by adding an additional super.
4/10 - saw a swarm at the front porch, caught it and put it in a nuc box.
(this nuc box has been doing great)
4/16 - noticed no sign of a queen, saw a queen for sale on the web, so I
decided to try and add a new queen to speed the recovery of this hive.
Placed queen on hive for 5 minutes, they did not seem aggressive, so I
installed her in the middle of the hive.
4/19 - Hive had killed queen and all her attendants and was covering the
plastic box with wax. During this inspection, I heard piping from a queen -
so I figured there was a newly emerged queen. No brood, so added a frame of
brood from the nuc hive, which also had a few uncapped and one capped swarm
cell on it, thinking this could be a backup).
4/29 - Inspected hive and noticed supercedure cells all closed (about 7).
Saw young queen (she was a little small, but I thought maybe she was freshly
mated).
4/30 - Went in to remove superseder cells - had planned to give these to a
friend who needed a queen. Removed cells, however noticed that although they
were closed, they were empty except for one which had a dead queen in it.
5/7 - Inspected yesterday. Hive seems quite low on population. No sign of a
queen. Bees not aggressive. Saw one hive beetle - worried that current bee
population will not be able to keep beetles at bay. NO brood, and bees have
been busy bringing in nectar, but very little of it is capped. I am worried
that the hive is a bit honey bound, so there really is no space for a queen
to lay in anyway. I am wondering if I had an after swarm due to lack of
space.

I’m not sure if I should
A) Combine this hive with either the nuc that I captured, or another swarm
that was captured a week before from a different hive.
B) Try another new queen
C) wait and see
D) Try adding more frames of brood.

Thanks so much - I really appreciate the wisdom of this beekeeper hive-body.
Elizabeth






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