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Author Topic: Cracked into our New (used) bees for the first time... HELP!  (Read 1221 times)

Offline kd8kty

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Cracked into our New (used) bees for the first time... HELP!
« on: April 15, 2013, 08:05:09 pm »
As some of you may know... we (todd really) bought a complete be hive, with a colony of bees a couple/few weeks ago. Other than setting the hive up, We have not really cracked into them until today. the only thing we did was remove the inner cover, add a pail feeder.

today, as we cracked into the hive this is what we say..

1. we removed the outer cover, and feeder pail. the bees consumed maybe 1/8 or less of the sugar water (mixed 1:1) we removed the empty super body surrounding the pail feeder and inner cover exposing the 2nd (top) deep.

2. we pulled 2 frames from the top deep. the upper deeps frames were STUCK in hard. tons of propolis, and honey sticking them together) we didnt see a lot of bees in the top deep, but in the 2 frames we pulled, they were full of honey. it was also pretty darned heavy. no queen noticed.

3. we removed the upper deep feeling as though it was full of honey. when we removed it, there was comb built between the two deeps, and some (freshly dead) larvae. set upper deep to the side.

4. as we began to remove frames from the lower deep we noticed a lot of the combs were empty. there was maybe 25% coverage on them of capped cells, pollen cells, larvae cells, act. the coverage was a lot less. there was more bees in the lower deep, but there was less activity on the comb. we did see one thing that we wernt sure what to make of... 1 LARGE QUEEN CELL IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF THE FRAMES!

5. we added a super a reassembled the hive.

as far as behavior goes, everything seemed normal. as far as numbers... i expected there to be a lot more bees, but maybe im wrong. there was def a bunch of them.

what are your thoughts on what we saw? we didnt pull and inspect every frame so i cant say for sure that we do or dont have a queen. i assume from the larvae (that we think are almost in all stages of growth) that we have one. but we also so a queen cell which a lot of the bees seemed attracted too.

this colony is at least in it second spring. it was a swarm collected by the guy we bought everything from.

ill ad pics soon!

Offline blanc

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Re: Cracked into our New (used) bees for the first time... HELP!
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2013, 08:34:29 pm »
KD what it sounds like is they swarmed on you and if you got in earlier you may have avoided the loss of bees. Just keep a closer eye on them when they get jambed up. Google the fat beeman and check out his videos of checker boarding to keep some room for them to grow.
Blanc
Psalm 19:9-10
The fear of the Lord is clean,enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea ,than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Offline 10framer

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Re: Cracked into our New (used) bees for the first time... HELP!
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2013, 10:54:39 pm »
it seems a little early for swarms in ohio.  a queen cell in the center of a frame sounds like either an emergency or supercedure cell to me. 
were there any eggs in the combs in the bottom hive body or were the bees back filling cells with nectar?
what is a lot of bees?  were they wall to wall?  what time of day was it?  were a lot of field bees foraging? 
there could be a lot of things going on.  i have a couple of hives that constantly keep a viable queen cell going but they tear it down before the queen emerges. 
we need more details and pictures would help a lot. 

Offline Vance G

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Re: Cracked into our New (used) bees for the first time... HELP!
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2013, 11:04:12 pm »
Remove the super!  These bees do not sound like they need more area to climate control and chase vermin in.  They don't need a feeder either with that capped honey.