Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: ConfedMarine on October 30, 2007, 06:46:55 pm
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I went out to put the last treatment of ApiGuard in my hives and do one last looksee. And this is what I found (only in this one hive, the other two are normal): 1) The Apiguard tray was full of honey/Apiguard mixed. More honey than Apiguard. 2) Drones and drone brood. 3) One queen cell. Very large and plump. 4) A marked Italian queen. But, this hive had an unmarked, jet black queen all summer. Majority of the workers and all the drones are a dark gray to black. Now there are some 3 banded normal colored workers. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
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I think the ladies had been hitting the hard stuff a little to much.
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how odd! they don't seem to mind the apiguard a bit. they track through it as though it were not there. have never seen them try to build in it!
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Not sure he's saying they built in it. Perhaps honey dumped into the tray.
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I went out to put the last treatment of ApiGuard in my hives and do one last looksee. And this is what I found (only in this one hive, the other two are normal): 1) The Apiguard tray was full of honey/Apiguard mixed. More honey than Apiguard. 2) Drones and drone brood. 3) One queen cell. Very large and plump. 4) A marked Italian queen. But, this hive had an unmarked, jet black queen all summer. Majority of the workers and all the drones are a dark gray to black. Now there are some 3 banded normal colored workers. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
Answer 1: Honey is also an excellent sealer, why not seal off the obnoxious odors by covering it with honey?
Answer 2: If you have drones this late in the season chances are the current residents may be a take over swarm, a la AHB or Black German characteristics.
Answer 3: See #2 or the hive isn't satisfied with the queen they superceded the Dark Gray or Black queen with.
This hive, if it has sufficient stores to survive the winter is ripe for early season requeening. Brood and drones at this late date anyplace than the more southern USA or more tropical would tend to lead me to believe this swarm of bees won't be in the hive come spring. A 2nd supercedure in the same season isn't good news. Are you using plastic comb/foundation? Is it possible that the wax in the comb has been contaminated too much?
I would requeen in the spring and let them grow new brood comb from foundationless frames--feed them until they get the combs mostly built out. One you have new combs in the brood area pull the supers with the old combs and make candles out of it.
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I did not realize that a swarm would relocate to an active colonies hive. This was an extremely strong hive. At one point this summer I had 5 medium supers on them and I was concerned with them swarming. They are still strong in numbers for this time of year. I just can not figure out where the marked queen appeared from. I will go back through my other two hives to make sure they each have a queen. I feel pretty sure they do, but I will not put anything past these bees this year. Thanks for all the replies.