Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => REQUEENING & RAISING NEW QUEENS => Topic started by: Michael Brown on October 20, 2011, 07:21:08 pm
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I have 8 colonies in Ekton, Maryland and I am concerned abouth winter in my current situation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hive 5 is Aggressive and I am not impressed with the queen.
I have two Nucs. Nuc 1 is overflowing - Love this queen. Probably the best queen I have.
Nuc 2 is low on bees and this queen has potential, i hate to loose her.
Right now I have the two nucs stacked on top of each other per a friend. I am concerned I will loose them both overwinter. I probably started these two Nucs a little late in the season, but the queen cells where from my best carnie hives.
Option 1 - Leave them alone til spring - Maybe add some bees to Nuc 2
Option 2 - Requeen Hive 5 with Nuc 1 - place nuc 2 on top for heat
Option 3 -?
What are my options for survivability?
Thanks,
Michael
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stacked on top might not be as good as putting them in between strong hives. push them right up against each other. if it were earlier in the year, i'd say shake some workers from the strong hives into the weak, but at this time of the year i don't think i'd risk weakening the stronger hives.
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Are you feeding? If so, 2:1 or 1:1? The common practice is to combine the two weakest hives keeping the best of the two queens...
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I have 8 colonies in Ekton, Maryland and I am concerned abouth winter in my current situation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hive 5 is Aggressive and I am not impressed with the queen.
I have two Nucs. Nuc 1 is overflowing - Love this queen. Probably the best queen I have.
Nuc 2 is low on bees and this queen has potential, i hate to loose her.
Right now I have the two nucs stacked on top of each other per a friend. I am concerned I will loose them both overwinter. I probably started these two Nucs a little late in the season, but the queen cells where from my best carnie hives.
Option 1 - Leave them alone til spring - Maybe add some bees to Nuc 2
Option 2 - Requeen Hive 5 with Nuc 1 - place nuc 2 on top for heat
Option 3 -?
What are my options for survivability?
Thanks,
Michael
The mean hive may stay mean who knows but going on what you have provided you have classified them as mean, so I'm with you on requeening them with the queen you like from nuc 1
You could then combine the now queenless nuc with the other if you are worried about numbers and stacking them would give them more room for feed. Hence a double nuc set up.
...JP
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You do not say how the full hive queens are doing. As rrussell said "common practice is to combine the two weakest hives keeping the best of the two queens." This late in the fall I think using newspaper to combine a nuc with a good hive might work but not if they have started to huddle up for the winter. I have heard of other beeks sandwiching a nuc between two regular hives (after loading a box with stores on top) to help low volume hives make it thru the winter.
I have not had a nuc this late in the fall, hopefully someone else will answer if you are planning on carring a nuc thru winter.
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Are you feeding? If so, 2:1 or 1:1? The common practice is to combine the two weakest hives keeping the best of the two queens...
Nice to see ya
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Thanks... I have seen a few familiar names. Lol. Want to make sure I am reaching as many as I can... someone emailed me saying that there was a post about buckfast queens that was incorrect and that they hoped I would chime in to correct it... so, here I am. Lol.
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I email your office today and wanted 5 queens, Still cant register on your site.
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Like mikecva said, newspaper combines can be a bit stressful when the nights are really cold and there is two levels of brood with one queen... to avoid these issues, you can simply cage the queen that you want to keep, place here in the upper section of the brood and transfer both nucs (bees and brood all together in the center) into one ten frame hive body... with the queen in the center of course... give them two or three days to sort it out, then release the queen... keep in mind that you want the new ten frame to be placed where the strongest of the two nucs were... if your worried about fighting (not so much of an issue in this situation and this time if year), you can shake the weaker nuc's bees off of the frames in front of the new hive as you install them... older bees will go to the original location, then drift to other hives as they find that home is gone, and younger bees will go on in to the new hive and start meshing with the other bees... hope this helps.
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Just a quick note to all... many people try to nurse weak hives through winter in an attempt to keep their hive numbers high... but its better to come out of winter with a few strong, healthy hives than with many poor hives... the few strong hives will be more than capable of producing all of the hives that you "lost" by combining, and you do not run the chance of losing all of your hives and having none of them build up until its too late for them to be truly productive... so don't look at combining as taking a loss, but rather preparing for increase...
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I email your office today and wanted 5 queens, Still cant register on your site.
Did they take good care of you? Email or pm me your email address and I will see if I can get you registered with a temporary password...
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Yes sir she did. Great customer service, fast response!!!
Yes I think you have a good point, maybe I should combine my queenless hive. I looked this evening and its pretty weak. I thought it was worth a try for the hell of it but that hive as no winter bees, good advise
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By the way of mean, I mean I can walk out to my hives and they wont bother me. Walk with in 30 ft of Hive 5 and you will get hit a couple times. Open the hive and a dozen will hit you in the vail. They are mean in relationship to my other hives. I can open my other hives and the bees stay calm.
The High is 65 next Wednesday. I think I am going to take the queen from Nuc 1 and cage here, installing her in Hive 5 after killing that queen. Then just leaving the double stack nuc, taking out the divider. Thanks everyone for your help.
Michael
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I can't recommend risking your best queen and making your best nuc queenless in October as a way to address an aggressive hive...
It would be best to address the aggression of the mean hive in early spring and focus more on getting your weaker colonies ready for winter or combined with one another.
Keep in mind that the hives that are usually quick to reject a queen are also the ones that show aggression, and late October in Maryland is too late to for a new queen to mate...
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Its not that I want to address the aggressive hive now. Its more about me loosing a great queen trying to overwinter her in a Nuc. I was trying to kill two birds with one stone.
Do I leave the hive alone til spring? Seperate the 2 nucs that are stacked and place them between two hives?
You thoughts are much appreciated.
Please advise.... Thanks
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From what ive read hot hives overwinter well and are good producers. I know a beek that will take hot hives off your hands without question.