I have also had an experience the other day that I can only say, the hive turned happy before my very eyes too. Just like you JP, were telling us.
I was going through all my 10 colonies to see how they are doing. I got to what I call P1 (for package 1) and they were doing alright. I would not call them very strong and I made a note in my records that I must give them a frame of emerging brood from one of my stronger colonies when I was all done and figured out what colony would best be the donor.
Before I had began to work the colonies I had noticed that the colony at the very end of the line of hives (N3) did not have any visual bees coming in and out, maybe one or two. This was cause for alarm and I knew that I had best take a really, really good look at them. This N3 colony had never been an overly strong unit, just moseying along, doing the best that they could. The inspections earlier in the season had shown a prolific queen, lots of brood, but something must have changed.
When I had completed my work with all the hives, I looked deeply into N3. Yes, not doing very well at all. As a matter of fact, making queen cells, and not very many bees. I looked deep into this hive to search for a queen, no queen, absolutely, checked the hive over several times to ensure no queen. If the colony was a strong colony, I would have suspected a swarm had issued, but there was not the strength of numbers of bees to entertain this thought.
The queen cells that I saw were not what I would call very large. Actually quite small. Capped, these queens would be emerging in a few days. Not good.
I venture that the queen died, for one reason or another, after the larvae were older than 18 hours and the bees took some older larvae to nurture into their queen. Not good, we all know the younger the larvae that the bees choose to become a queen the better (or at least some of us know that). This is a note to new beekeepers, some learning going on here. Listen and learn.
I needed to unite this weak colony with another weak colony, to produce a much stronger and healthier one. What other better colony to unite it with than P1 that needed a frame of brood! Yeah!!! I know that all things work out in the wash.
So, back to P1 that would receive this poor, queenless colony. I removed the lid and inner cover from P1, put newspaper on top and went to get N3 to place on top for the ultimate uniting to make a strong unit.
N3 was a very sad colony, I could feel their sadness, they were indeed very sad. They were walking over the comb (no sound, not even the typical "roaring" of a queenless colony), that is how sad they were. They had lost their very reason for living. Their queen was gone. But they did have hopes, and that was the queen cells which they had constructed. I have a feeling that they knew that their queen may not have been the best or the biggest, they only had the older larvae to work with, but she would provide them with all the necessary pheromones (and new lives for the continuation of their world) that would bring their colony back to cohesion and happiness. I removed the queen cells from the frame, so that any queens that may hatch would not kill the queen in the colony that they were to be united with.
As an aside, I have recently learned from Michael Bush that sometimes even smaller queens can be wonderful laying machines, so, perhaps these queens that appeared smaller could still have done a great job.
I carried the box of N3 over to P1. Oh brother, the newspaper blew off in the warm summer breeze while I was fetching N3. I placed the box gently on the soft grass, replaced the newspaper on P1. I actually had to lay my body over the newspaper to hold it all in place. The propolis helped me to get it to adhere and it stayed.
These two colonies were now united. I watched for awhile. Watching the world of the bees brings a feeling of euphoria to my soul, the scents of the hives takes it even deeper, as I sat there on the warm summer day.
Over the course of the next couple of days, I watched closely to see if there was any fighting or dead bees that were out of the ordinary. Narry a soul. These bees mingled with gusto and happiness. Bees flying in the top and bottom entrance, greeted with glee from the guards within.
Yes, I have seen the hive turn from sad to happy too. Have a wonderful day, great life, love this life we’re livin’. Cindi
Topic: My hives turned happy too!!!! The uniting of two colonies (Read 2161 times)