Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: annette on May 06, 2008, 11:20:55 pm
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I am feeling sad today and the hive inspections did not go well today.
Firstly, my laying worker hive made me feel very badly. There are so many frames now of drone brood and the bees are so happily taking care of this brood unaware that they are doomed by all this. They are so peaceful doing this work. They did not make any queen cells from the frame of eggs I gave them last week. I did see a few queen cups on the bottom of a frame, but nothing inside them.
Anyway, I went into my other strong hive and searched for a frame of eggs to give them, and maybe it was the time of day (later in afternoon and the sun was in a different position)but I could not find any frames with eggs to give my laying worker hive. I just closed up everything and left feeling very sad. I think I will try one more time tomorrow to try to find the eggs for them.
Wish me luck
Annette
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your luck is like mine annette, when you dont need eggs they are everywhere.... when you need them cant find them anywhere. i have a swarm that went queenless and i couldnt find any either. millermann
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What did you do about the swarm??
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annette, my .02 worth is that you should knock those bees off and then try to requeen. otherwise, you spend a lot of time. and brood from you other hive on something that may not work. wouldn't it be faster to just shake them out?
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the swarm had been a pain with queens so i just combined with another hive, gave plenty of room and all is well so far. i haven't been in beekeeping long (second year) so i haven't run into a laying worker yet. that why i went on and combined because i heard that a laying worker is a pain. hope everything works out. millermann
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Problems like this one are why the first things we built when starting out this year were two Nucs. Even before ordering our hives. Got our first bees just 1 1/2 weeks ago and are already working on refilling the nucs thanks to our Friendly Old Beek Friend. :) :) :)
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annette, my .02 worth is that you should knock those bees off and then try to requeen. otherwise, you spend a lot of time. and brood from you other hive on something that may not work. wouldn't it be faster to just shake them out?
I am thinking about going in this direction, as I just hate to upset the other only good hive I have. Now on the shake down, I take the hive about 100 feet away and shake each and every frame until all bees are off the frames?? Then I place the hive back together in the same spot,and introduce a mated queen?? Does this sound good?? What about all those drone frames? Just leave everything as it is?
I may try for one more week with this hive, as MB said it takes 3 trys before they get it into their heads to make a queen. If I can easily find the eggs tomorrow without distrupting the good hive, then I will do it. I am only going through the top super this time (which I ignored today, thinking they were making honey up there, but it was not heavy) and then calling it quits.
Thanks for the response. I appreciate the help
Annette
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the swarm had been a pain with queens so i just combined with another hive, gave plenty of room and all is well so far. i haven't been in beekeeping long (second year) so i haven't run into a laying worker yet. that why i went on and combined because i heard that a laying worker is a pain. hope everything works out. millermann
Thanks for the good wishes millermann
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shake em out. kill everyone of those little pests.. No good now.....
When you revitalized that colony just take a couple frames of young brood and shake all the bees of it. Then after the empty comb is in the original hive throw a queen excluder on top and put your split on top of that. The next morning yank that box off and put it back where it came from. 1 day later introduce your queen.
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Open brood will do. There are bound to be some young larvae on a frame of mostly open brood. Yes, in my experience it takes a frame of open brood every week for three weeks to set them right. Once doesn't do it.
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Open brood will do. There are bound to be some young larvae on a frame of mostly open brood. Yes, in my experience it takes a frame of open brood every week for three weeks to set them right. Once doesn't do it.
Once a laying worker status happens in a hive it can take up to putting frames of varied aged brood into the hive up to 5 times before they go queen right. Sometimes there just aren't enough bees in the hive to allow it to survive that long (5 weeks plus 3-4 more for hatch and mating). Then the choice boils down to keep adding brood frames (more developed brood once a queen cell is found) or shaking it out and/or combining it.
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At the moment, the population is very good, but I can see your point about how it will decrease very soon. I am going to continue a couple more times of giving the frames of open brood, then whatever happens, happens.
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Well, I added another frame of open brood to the laying worker hive this afternoon. the frame had many, many tiny larvae, but I could not see any eggs. I just hope and pray there are some eggs for them to make a queen cell.This is going on week number 3.
Anyway, I broke down today and ordered a package of bees from the Sacramento Beekeepng Store to be picked up Saturday. I already set up the hive for this package and I am set to go. If my laying worker hive doesn't make it, then I will move the package to the laying worker site. If they make it, well then I will be the proud owner of yet another beehive. "three" hives total.
I feel like a parent who cannot conceive, but when they adopt a child, bingo, they conceive. Watch, I bet you the laying worker hive will come through and make a queen cell.
Wish me luck, once again
Annette
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Good luck Annette, I hope there were some eggs on there too. I would check them in 8 days to see if they capped a cell.
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Thanks Dallas for the good wishes
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Annette,
Keep going until you succeed. I going through the same with one hive that remains to be stubborn. :-x
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If you ever see any swarm cells in your good hive, or have the oportunity to get your hands on one, putting a queen cell in your laying worker hive is also a good way to straighten them out.
rick
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Annette, I have been so busy I haven't had much time on the forum. I hope all goes well with you, getting another package is probably a good idea. Those darn laying workers, eh?
I don't think that this has been talked about yet. When you are ever shaking a frame of open eggs, larvae, you must be careful not to shake too hard. The larvae can be dislodged from the cells. I remember Finsky talking about that, remember him? Too bad he isn't here anymore. I recall him speaking that he dumped out a bunch of larvae, so when you shake, be firm, don't shake the frames a bunch of times, just one good kind of shake bump, can't really define it much better.
The best queens are made from eggs that have hatched and are no older than 36 hours old. If you see larvae, they are getting a bit old to make excellent queens. That is why it is so important when wanting to give the bees the means to make a new queen to try the best to include eggs. No doubt there will be some eggs when you can just barely see the larvae, but keep that is the back of your mind.
Good luck girl, you are doing just fine, you are learning so many things and taking it all in stride, have the most beautiful and wonderful day, successful thoughts coming from me to you. Cindi
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i wonder how it would work to take a couple of frames of eggs and brood with nurse bees, and put them in a nuc for a few days. just long enough for them to start queen cells. then you could transfer those to the hive and hope for the best?
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kathyp
This sounds interesting to me also. Next week I have to make the decision which way to go if they do not make that darn queen cell by then.
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i wonder how it would work to take a couple of frames of eggs and brood with nurse bees, and put them in a nuc for a few days. just long enough for them to start queen cells. then you could transfer those to the hive and hope for the best?
I would think that that would work fine.
It sounds like another method of dealing with laying workers...make a small split and they can raise one or add a queen and then combine that to the LWC with screenboard. The screenboard allows the queen to lay in the small happy queenright hive and the combine to take longer allowing the better queen acceptance.
-r
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OK this is the end of week number 3 and I have some good news and maybe bad news. They finally made a queen cell, in fact 2 queen cells, but they are on the bottom of the frame meaning they are swarm cells but they are puny queen cells. I feel good about this because at last they have it in their minds to make the queen cells, so what I did was give them 2 more frames of really small open brood. I actually found 2 really good frames and maybe this week they can finally make a supercedure cell.
So my question is what do I do if they continue to just make swarm cells??? I cannot imagine this little hive wanting to swarm.
Any input is appreciated.
Thank you
Annette
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>They finally made a queen cell, in fact 2 queen cells, but they are on the bottom of the frame meaning they are swarm cells
Not at all. Emergency cells might be anywhere. A hive that has been queenless that long is not making swarm cells.
> but they are puny queen cells.
Queen cells vary greatly in size. I've never seen any correlation between the size of the cell and the size of the queen, nor the size of a virgin queen and the size of the same queen when she's laying.
> I feel good about this because at last they have it in their minds to make the queen cells, so what I did was give them 2 more frames of really small open brood. I actually found 2 really good frames and maybe this week they can finally make a supercedure cell.
I won't hurt to give them more brood. But let them finish the queens they start.
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OH Boy!!!!! This is really great news and I think I have succeeded finally in getting this queenless hive on the right track. Time will tell, but it is encouraging news. Thanks for the advice
Sincerely
Annette