Queens Shut down

[johnnybigfish]

 I just read a couple nites ago that queens stop laying when it either gets up to 92 or 98 degrees.( Cant remember which one) This is also when the bees have a lot of foragers turn into water gatherers so they can cool the hive
 I have 9 hives now and they drink a 5 gal chicken waterer of water every 4 days. They are also drinking alot of syrup. The book says that they will take syrup when its hot because of the water in it
 The book is "The Hive and the Honeybee".

your friend,
john

[Brian D. Bray]

It sounds like some of you are honey bound.  I had it happen to 2 or 3 of my hives (of 8 total hives) this year.  I took some brood frames out of one hive and put it in the honey bound hive.  I also took some undrawn frames and placed them next to the brood frame.  A beekeeper on this forum told me that doing this would stimulate egg laying and drawing out more comb. 

I will check later this week and see what is going on.  I have had similar troubles this year as well. 

When you find the brood nest full of nector (honey bound) the quickest fix is to pull a few frames into a  super and put replace them with new frames.  The ull frames moved up will bait the super and the replacement frames will give the queen laying space.  Use drawn comb as the replacement if possible as it will put the queen as much as a week ahead of undrawn frames when laying brood.  Using a frame of brood from another hive as one of the replacement frames will guarantee the replacement frames will be used for egg laying.  The brood frame also will tell you if you're queenless because the bees will begin making queen cells.

Note that honey bound mimics a queenless hive with no or little evidence of brood.  Treat every broodless hive for honey bound before jumping off a cliff and ordering an unneeded and unnecessary queen.

[Hayesbo]

Note that honey bound mimics a queenless hive with no or little evidence of brood.  Treat every broodless hive for honey bound before jumping off a cliff and ordering an unneeded and unnecessary queen.

great advice. I wish I had had it before I bought and installed 2 queens to help boost two of the 4 bound hives. Wasted money since the queens were dispatched just as soon as the sugar plug could be moved through.
Steve