Wild/Natural/Small cell comb..

[TenshiB]

With this type of comb (wild/natural/small cell):

Can a commercially-bought (or domestic?) queen back her abdomen in these smaller cells to lay eggs successfully? If so, I have yet to attest that she can.

Will the remaining "wild" bees from the cutout store nectar in their old comb that has been rubberbanded into frames? They have only seemed to store a little nectar (or sugar water) in just two of seven frames that have their old comb from the log that we got 'em from..

The $30 queen may be doomed as their numbers are dwindling fast, she doesn't seem to be laying eggs, and fall then winter is on its way. Luckily we're in the piedmont/fall line area of GA..

I don't see much salvation for these bees other than a hope and a prayer that they can turn things around on their lonesome.. They have two to three drawn-out mediums that had SOME eggs in them from a booming hive we robbed two weeks ago.. We checked yesterday and those particular cells are capped for the most part. I did notice one worker bee dragging a pupa out of the front entrance. Also saw one cell with the cap half-way there and an exposed (white) pupa with eyes already turning black--I don't perceive that to be a good sign.

Maybe when/if these robbed babies hatch, they'll coax this queen into a laying mode? If this is the case, it needs to hurry!

About the queen: she has had free-range for 7 days; she was taken from a five frame nuc in which she had quite pretty brood pattern going on; and we've got two others from the same man in the same fashion (at different times of the year, though) and these other two queens are phenomenal. [=

[rwlaw]

Wow, you got some heavy stuff going on! One question, are you feeding? Because if your not the answer for the lack of nectar is because they have to feed the brood that you gave them.
The queen might not laying because ( and I'm guessing) of the lack of food also, maybe give them a frame of pollen & nectar.
Also & I don't want to offend, but when you tied the comb into the frames did you get the orientation right? If they're upside down she won't lay in em either.
The small cell guys'll have to chime in about if a large cell queen can lay in small cell comb, seems like she could.

[10framer]

i think i've seen this asked before and it seems like the answer was yes. 

[TenshiB]

Hmm.. thanks for the responses!

I'm positive that I paid no mind to orientation of the comb, so that is probably a major reason they don't care for it too much. I think that this hive in particular is not going to make it. Leaves me wondering if we could do anything with the queen.    /=

[Kathyp]

Also & I don't want to offend, but when you tied the comb into the frames did you get the orientation right? If they're upside down she won't lay in em either.

my first thought.

I'm positive that I paid no mind to orientation of the comb, so that is probably a major reason they don't care for it too much. I think that this hive in particular is not going to make it. Leaves me wondering if we could do anything with the queen.

    /=

shake them off into a nuc with drawn comb and feed.

[T Beek]

Bees will adapt "if" there are enough of them and time permits.  Queens egg laying slows way down this time of year, even in GA.

Extremely important to get the right placement of comb.   If it was July they'd have time to correct any mistakes made by beekeepers (upside down comb placement?)....In September....not so much.

[Michael Bush]

>Can a commercially-bought (or domestic?) queen back her abdomen in these smaller cells to lay eggs successfully?

Yes.

> If so, I have yet to attest that she can.

There may be other extenuating circumstances...

>Will the remaining "wild" bees from the cutout store nectar in their old comb that has been rubberbanded into frames?

Usually, yes.

>They have only seemed to store a little nectar (or sugar water) in just two of seven frames that have their old comb from the log that we got 'em from..

They typically don't like combs that are sloped the wrong way (as already mentioned above), but I have seen them fill them with honey sometimes and, if there is no where else to lay, I've seen the queen lay in them sometimes.  But all in all they don't seem to like them as much.

[TenshiB]

Thanks all. These sorts of lessons are pretty expensive--lessons from experience, that is--but they're pretty effective because I won't be forgetting them.
In my hurry I paid no attention to the orientation of the combs rubberbanded into the frames.. This "hive" (not sure it can even be considered one) is most likely doomed and I'm thinking that we ought to just take our lumps on this one. We'll continue to feed them. When we did the cut-out we should have looked a lot harder for that wild queen because, as I understand it, sometimes the wild queens have striped abdomens that blend in pretty well with the working class (I remember seeing Mr. Bush and someone else discussing this).. Anywho the loss is:  $30 queen
                             6 hours of a rainy weekend day

Again, I think the value of the knowledge gained kind of balances things..

Right now this bunch is just in a single medium hive body with some of the frames with the natural comb that the workers have actually stored some nectar and pollen in; some frames that are not yet drawn; and then there are some medium frames that we robbed from a prolific hive/queen that were fresh drawn (partial) with eggs in them. When we checked those frames, the cells that had eggs were capped and I'm thinking they should be hatching around 09-21 since we put them there about two weekends ago.. MAYBE the young brood (in the hundreds at best, sadly) will stimulate the queen to get crackin'? OH, they're also being fed sugar water.. I'm pretty sure it's 1:1 with a tsp of Pro-Health.

[T Beek]

Nothing like 'hands on' lessons.  They seem to adhere a bit more and I've got the lumps to prove it  :)

That little colony may yet surprise you, you've got a 'little' time remaining.  You may want to change your syrup ratio to 2-1 though as with less water in the syrup there is also less water for bees to evaporate.

[rwlaw]

An old millwright I used to work with had a favorite phrase, " not makimg mistakes means your not working".
That was his way of saying, ya gotta learn sometime lol.
Next chance you get, hold the suspect frames at eyeball level,if you see comb at the top the tilt is upward. Put all the good frames in the middle and let em go.
 IMO give em 2/1 syrup and don't put in any HBH, that stuff has it's place,but not in a situation as yours.

[Michael Bush]

I had a boss who was fond of saying something like that.  He said "If you're not making mistakes you're not doing anything."  Then if he didn't think you were working hard enough he might say "I don't see you making many mistakes today..."

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslearning.htm

[Santa Caras]

Yeap...had an old oilman/cattle rancher in Texas that used to say the same thing about not making mistakes your not working.
Thing is....his mistakes and accumullated several to many millions of dollars in his bank too!!!!