So what do I know???

[Kris^]

Recently I posted about waiting for the fall flow to start here and the bees having little to do until then.  Well . . .

I decided to put some grease patties in the hives late this afternoon, and it has been almost four weeks since I last checked the hives (when I took some honey from my slow hive).  Yeah, they were pretty well glued together, but when I freed them, I nearly broke my back lifting the supers off!  Of the four hives, three of them had both supers full of honey, with the majority of the frames capped.  I don't know where they got it all, seeing as we've had two heat waves in the past few weeks with little rain.  Must be a lot of something growing out there in the Pinelands.

The fourth hive, which has been my strongest one this year, only had one super full -- and lots of swarm cells.  Many of them were on the bottom of frames and also attached to the top bar below, and got pulled apart when I removed the box.  They mostly had well developed pupae in them.  One frame in the upper brood box had about 8 empty cells hanging off the bottom, all empty.  Some of them were those "play" cell things, but others looked like they'd been chewed open.  All in all, there were about 16 or so cells throughout the hive, mostly open and some sealed.  I managed to keep 3 or 4 from getting destroyed.  I didn't see my marked queen, who was from last year.  There was plenty of fresh brood, including very young larvae.  Lots of capped brood too.  I didn't see eggs, but the lighting wasn't right.  The hive is still chock full of bees.

What does it mean?  What should I do, if anything?

-- Kris

[manowar422]

Kris, this forth hive, was the queen marked?

If you really have a need to know, try and
find her, but chances are she was injured,
killed, or just replaced.

How does the population compare to recent
inspections? Do you suspect they swarmed?

I personally would leave them alone, but if
you just like to know what happened...

[Kris^]

Yes, she was marked, but I've missed her before.  I inspected from the bottom up, and she could very well have been in the second brood box and skeedaddled down when I replaced it on the hive but before I got all the frames pulled.  The hive is absolutely full of bees, just as much as before, it seems.  I doubt they swarmed.

My initial thought, too, is to do nothing for now and leave them alone.  But what do I know?   :)

-- Kris

[Michael Bush]

If there are a lot of swarm cells, I'd do a split.  They are going to swarm, or they already have and may afterswarm.

[Kris^]

If there are a lot of swarm cells, I'd do a split.  They are going to swarm, or they already have and may afterswarm.

Michael --

Could you give me some tips on how best to do this, i.e, what frames (brood, swarm cells, honey, pollen, house bees, queen, etc.) to put in the cut down and walkaway splits, and what to do with the supers, both of which have some brood.  Also, what concerns should I have doing a split in August?  (I fed syrup until mid-November here last year.)

-- Kris

[Michael Bush]

Are we talking about capped queen cells hanging from the bottom of the frames?

If so, then I'd split.

How?

Just divide the resources.  Some of it depends on what equipment you have to put them in and some of it depends on how many queens you'd like to get.

I have a lot of two frame nucs and I'll put every frame that has a queen cell in it's own nuc with a frame of honey and let them emerge and mate and get some free queens out of it.  But if you don't need the queens and you don't have the nucs, then I'd just do an even split.

Put half the honey, half the open brood and half the capped brood in each side of the split.  I like to put them both next to the original location so they don't all drift back, but you can also shake a few extra frames of open brood into the one in the new location to make up for the drifting back.

Try to arrange it like the bees do.  With the brood together in the middle and the honey on the outsides or in the box on top of the brood.

[Kris^]

So I did as suggested putting equal brood, honey and pollen in each split.  I moved one to the end of the row and left the other where it was.  For the life of me, though, I couldn't find the queen.  I looked through twice after separating all the boxes and supers.  Which I take to mean my marked queen is gone -- probably swamed -- and a virgin queen was running around in there that I couldn't find.  So I also put queen cells in both hives as insurance.  There were a few swarm cells and a supercedure cell that I divided up.  I also put extra open and capped brood from a different hive into the walkaway, seeing as the foragers are going elsewhere.  Hope this doesn't cause more problems than it solves.   :)

-- Kris

[Michael Bush]

The open brood has to be fed.  The emerging brood will quickly boost the population.  Capped brood (assuming it's not emerging yet) isn't so big of a drain on resources (bees and food) but emerging is best ifyou're tyring to make up for the drifters.  Shaking a frame or two of bees off of open brood will boost the population also, since they are young bees and half of them will probably stay.