Day 20 update..

[AllanJ]

So.. hived my 1st package on 3/31. No brood on day 10. New queen added day 12. Removed top hive feeder on day 13 since it was not being used and a quarter of the hive was stuff up in the sides. Released new queen on day 14 after I found the attendants dead. Queen was piping. Added baggie feeder on day 17 instead of the top feeder.

Today was the 1st sunny and hot day in ages. I got home and saw a mass of bees flying around the hive. I figured that my hive was being robbed which surprised me since we rarely see any bees in our garden. Last year I do not think I saw a bee all summer. I am fairly sure that there is not another beekeepers hive anywhere near me.  I sat just a foot away from the entrance to watch and confirmed that my new hive was under attack. 

My bees are mostly yellow with 3 small black stripes near the tail. The attacking bees had black stripes all the way to the head, and in some cases were mostly black with a few small yellow stripes. I put the entrance reducer to the smallest size and that appeared to make a difference. 

I noticed that a lot of bees were under the hive too. When I quickly checked my baggie feeder, it was empty and appears to have leaked through the hive and onto the ground. Luckily, I had set the bag off to the hive and away from the main frames being worked.  I am not having much luck with feeders so fair. Tomorrow I am going to set a new bag onto a metal tray I have laying around which is nearly the same size.

I still have not checked inside the hive for brood. I plan to do that tomorrow.

On walking away from the hive, I realized that I probably caused the robbing. There is a tarp on the ground which had rain water on. When I removed the top hive feeder last week, I poured the syrup into the water. There was about 100 bees lapping up the water which is only 20 feet from my hive. I knelt down and realized that most of them had the black pattern.  I wish I could figure out where the other bees hive is.. would love to capture them.

My 2nd hive was due to arrive this week. I purchased them from Drapers and was told they were being sent out on the 16th.  I called on the 19th and was told by Drapers that they can not track when/if they were sent out. I realized after I ordered them that Draper outsources the bees and does not produce and send them from their own office (not all anyway). In fact Draper would not tell me the zip the bees were coming from. I got the impression from the guy that he was not interested in trying to find out if my bees were shipped or who shipped them.  Might have been delayed due to weather etc.. 

I am hoping they arrive tomorrow and that my 1st hive finally has brood!

[Shizzell]

Wow, you went through 2 queens in 20 days?
Ouch.

You say the queen was piping. That might have meant there was another queen in there already.

Good luck on receiving your second hive. That will really help in the long run.

Jake

[beemaster]

I might have missed something, but it sounds like you may have flooded your hive with excess sugar syrup and caused a mess from the top feeder onto undrawn foundation. Excess syrup or sugar water can't be handled and makes a sticky mess of the bees when they have no place to store it.

I'm old fashioned about this (some say) but I always believe a new package, in a new hive NEEDS an ENTRANCE FEEDER and short entrance reducer to give it some protective room to guard. Keeping up with a feeder jar can be daunting BUT you have a visual way to know when replenishing is required.

And day 14 on the second queen?? That's a scary, you lost THOUSANDS of brood (mostly eggs and larva mind you)  and in-house workers NEED that building of comb and nursing task to complete their cycles of life in a normal and productive fashion. Marching around with a caged queen gives a hive very little incentive to product cell structure. I don't read when the first queen was released, and if she appeared healthy - curious if the bees were calm but productive or lazy and absent-minded? A bum queen (totally bum) isn't that common, but I think I would have saved her and tried a few hundred workers and her back in the shipping cage with a piece of foundation and syrup to see if she laid eggs then - could be she never mated?? I'm sure that happens from some videos I've seen and the great slide show TWT put on the forum.

Many will argue WHEN to get the queen out of the queen cage - I have always removed the plug, waited 4-5 days and check to see she is released. If not, I'll break through the candy seal, return the cage and check again the next day. I honestly have not had to manually pull the staple and open the cage more than once and she GLADLY walked out and among the workers.

If your comb was drawn out, a hive top feeder is a great thing, many people will tell you to use it all the time - I won't argue that point now. But your hive was in a perfect position for robbing if the queen wasn't out and about the hive and brood wasn't in the making. Best wishes with the next package, keep a close eye on it and YES an entrance reducer set to small is plenty of room for them to travel to and from with, you'll know it is time to expand the width as they bottle-neck up when returning from the field.

[Kirk-o]

O K Buddy I would try to relax a little Bees are smart they can do there job.When you get your bees Take the cork out of the non-candy end put a piece of marshmellow in there.They will let her out in a few hours then.They have had her in with them for a few days already and been clustered around her.I do the marshmellow trick because I have ants that bother my hives.I think your second time will be better
kirko

[ZuniBee]

Since I am even newer at beekeeping than you I can't do anything but tell of my experience. After reading Michael Bush's posts on direct release I thought it really made sense to do with a package. Well, I was so overwhelmed with thousands of bees and the fact that the queen cage had workers in there with her....I decided to make it very easy for the queen to get out. I opened the cork on the candy end with the tip of a small pair of sissors. Then, I used one blade of the sissors to poke a hole in the candy. I did this because I read that some people use a nail to make a hole if the queen doesn't release. Therefore, I though a big hole with the point of sissors would make the queen release within a couple of hours. After 5 days I checked and all four were released and comb was being made.

Is this the way to do it? Was I lucky? Who knows. But it seemed to make sense to me after reading about direct release on packages. I plan to try to get a few more packages if I can find them and will do the exact same thing and see if I get the same results.

[AllanJ]

Just to clarify, I direct release the 1st queen on day 1. On Day 10 and 12 I did an inspection and there was no brood, eggs, larva etc. I put a 2nd queen into the hive and this time did not direct release her. I did poke a decent size hole in the candy. On day 14, there was no evidence that they were releasing the queen and all the attendants were dead. I opened up the screen of the cage and let the queen out at that point. She was piping, so I have to assume that the 1st queen was still in the hive but there was no brood.

I did 2 inspections and there were no brood.. from what I have read, most people would have considered putting in a new queen on day 14 on a new package that is only getting older.

I am certainly hoping I do better with my 2nd hive :)

[MarkR]

Here's my three week report, though thinking back over everything it seems much longer. :shock:

My second queen was released on the 15th.  Did an inspection today and found 5- 5 1/2 frames with comb.  Three of them were about 2/3 full of brood, very few drone cells (like one per frame).  Lots of pollen and liquid in a lot of the other cells.  I removed that lovely white comb column that was erupting through the whole in the inner cover as well.  They're still taking the syrup so I topped that off as well.   

Looks like I'm recovering well after losing that first queen.  I was thinking of adding the second brood deep today, but decided to wait a bit.  Was this a good call or should I go ahead and stick it on?  If waiting was right, how much longer should I go? 

I was hoping to win a second hive at a club installation demonstration today, but the force was not with me.  Oh well, I'm already buying the equipment for next year.

Mark

[AllanJ]

Hey Mark,

I wanted to go today.. 1 in a 30 chance to win huh?  but the Ashland club had a field trip out to a beeyard. It was great to be around so many established hives and go through frame by frame. Got to see the queens too.. which is funny, because once she is pointed out, it is obvious :)  We also saw hives that either had a failing queen or none at all. 

On to my hive.. we just got back from going through it and can report.. we have brood!!! I saw larva and capped in the Permacomb. The bees are also drawing out comb on the medium of small cell foundation I put above the PC. I did not look for the queen as I decided to put everything back together when came across the larva. I'll post pics later..

[AllanJ]

One thing I noticed on the PC and that is they are only working half of it.. so instead of using the whole of both sides of frame 5, they are using the half of it and then half on frame 4,3,2 and 1. The pic below was of frame 2. Going to be curious to see if they use the other half of the frame for anything or move onto the wax foundation when it is ready.

[annette]

do  not mean to change the subject, but what kind of camera takes such fabulous pics as yours??? I am looking for a camera right now.

Thank you
Annette

[AllanJ]

I have the Canon Powershot S410..  during my research, it was the best out there at the time. It has a macro feature that enables you to take a clear picture from only 3" away.  Enables me to look for mites, eggs etc.. Great camera.  I love being able to take lots of pictures and then examine them later on the computer..

[beemaster]

Man, I agree.... one of the best macro shots I've seen in a long time - how many mega pixels? What really is impressive is the depth of field, hard to get great macro and sharp focus from bee to larva with my macro lens, of course that is at 1 inch too, I would gladly give up some of that macro for shots like that! Great Photo.

[thegolfpsycho]

If you have plastic foundation in the hive, I strongly suggest you do not add wax foundation in the same box.  Bees in order of preference, make their own comb, build out wax, and finally work the plastic foundations.  If you add wax, they will abandon the the plastic foundation until they are again, forced to use it.  this also heightens the possibility that they will swarm before getting the box filled out.  Once they have worked the plastic, it's fine, so you have to give them no other options.

[MarkR]

Thanks psycho, that's what I was thinking.

Mark

[AllanJ]

Originally, I did not intend to use wax in this hive for the brood boxes.. However, on day 14 I had no brood and no sign of a queen. I introduced a 2nd queen and she started piping.  So, my inexperience kicked in.. I figured I still had the original queen still in the hive. However she had not layed anything in the plastic.  So, with the hive getting older by the day, me with no other hive and no way to introduce new brood, I decided to add the wax foundation as insurance.

I figured that a) it would give them something to do :)  b) they would build some comb  c) if the surviving queen still did not like the plastic, then there would be wax being built that would get her attention.

As it happens she started laying in the plastic and the bees are also building comb.

What do I do next?   I figure this will depend on what is happening in the hive.. If she is still laying in the plastic and have not moved to the wax, then I will add another box of plastic between the bottom plastic and the top wax.

I also have a 2nd package coming this week which is going only on wax. I was thinking of taking 2 frames of comb out of the 1st hive and putting into the 2nd hive to give them a better start..

Do I know what I am doing?  nope..  but I think I am not totally off track.

[pdmattox]

I would let the new hive build up and not take anything from it to boost the new package.  Let the new packages do their thing and it all will work out.