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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Brad Kosiba <bradkosiba AT gmail.com>
  • To: Elizabeth Pratson <epratson AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] trying to save a hive
  • Date: Tue, 9 May 2017 11:12:03 -0400

Elizabeth,

You said it had been a strong hive before.  In that case I would think the easiest thing would be your first thought.  Just newspaper combine back in the nuc that swarmed out and call it even.  That way you would simply skip over whatever confusion or lost virgin or whatever that happened in the intervening time and get them back on track right away for free.

Cheers,

Brad

On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 11:08 AM, Elizabeth Pratson <epratson AT gmail.com> wrote:
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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--
Bradley E Kosiba, PhD
Biochemist-Beekeeper-Gardener-Scouter
 



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