A Bit of a Mess to Sort Out

[The Poot]

June 14th did AS of a double brood colony with three supers, by nuc ing the queen and leaving one open queen cell.
It is my biggest colony in bee numbers by far - a very prolific queen. I added a fourth super at the end of June.
I’ve checked supers since and they were filling and emptying as the weather dictated and the bees were very active when they could be.
I intended to check for evidence of a queen around the 12th/ 14th of July but poor mating weather made me delay until today.

Today, removed supers - all very heavy to check the brood area for queenie.
No evidence as every single frame was full of honey! I was considering what to do while cleaning off loads of brace comb from the QX - and found a small amount of small larvae on the top of the QX. It seems queenie has mated, returned and squeezed through the QX to find a few free cells in the super I had added.

So, I gave them an additional brood box of foundation, removed the QX and checked the supers for brood and only found one had some. I fitted that above the empty brood box with a filled super above, then a clearer board, then the two final supers.
Tomorrow I hope to find the supers cleared. I will fit a drawn super if I’m able to take them, then the queen will, I hope be encouraged to find laying space in the new brood box and the bees can move the lower brood box honey up.
What could possibly go wrong?

 

[ericbeaumont]

Tomorrow I hope to find the supers cleared

Not if there's the slightest flow in progress.

 

[The Poot]

Not if there's the slightest flow in progress.

There’s a good flow at present - still loads of bramble to flower here.
I’ll let you know what I find….

 

[enrico]

The only problem as I see it is if your queen is above the clearer board. If she lays in either of those two boxes they are never going to leave her.

 

[The Poot]

The only problem as I see it is if your queen is above the clearer board. If she lays in either of those two boxes they are never going to leave her.

Yes that’s a possibility, if so, she should be a little easier to find than in a choice of six boxes! I hope…..
I’ve never seen such a mess as this one is, with everything just honey bound! I’ll be doing some crush and strain as my spinner won’t take brood frames if they don’t move it up.

 

[ericbeaumont]

should be a little easier to find

No need: shake all the bees into the BBs, put on the QX and carry on.

Had a similar event a few weeks ago (slim queen, recently mated) so put her back below the QX; when I checked a couple of weeks later, she was still laying downstairs. Guess she plumped up a little and couldn't fit through the QX.

 

[The Poot]

No need: shake all the bees into the BBs, put on the QX and carry on.

Had a similar event a few weeks ago (slim queen, recently mated) so put her back below the QX; when I checked a couple of weeks later, she was still laying downstairs. Guess she plumped up a little and couldn't fit through the QX.

I found about 100+ bees in the top most super with only about a dozen in the one below it, so concluded (possibly wrongly) the queen was in the next super down - the one with a frame of brood directly below the clearer board.
I decided to take the two supers off, added a queen excluder above a drawn super (My last one!)
That leaves queenie a drawn super and a brood box of foundation to play with.
I will recheck them in a few days to ensure the queen is still alive and doing and then remove brood frames of honey (if ripe) and replace with foundation, until I can remove the box altogether, whilst adding another super at the top.
(I’m just not able to hoist a honey filled brood box to the top of the stack, which would be the quickest improvement).
So from the bottom up the stack is
2 x honey filled brood boxes
1 x brood with foundation
1 x super with 10 frames honey, 1 frame of capped brood
1 x drawn super
QX
Super - filled but not capped.

I will add a drawn super to the top, once extracted.

Thanks for your comments on this Eric and generally - you are most helpful.

 

[North End Bees]

Can you distribute the stores frames from one of the BBs amongst your other hives?
That would get the tower down a bit.
Or, if capped, put aside for winter feeding?

The most likely place the queen will be right now is the drawn shallow. I'd put a QX either side of it to hopefully isolate her. Checking for eggs in a couple of days to verify.

 

[The Poot]

Can you distribute the stores frames from one of the BBs amongst your other hives?
That would get the tower down a bit.
Or, if capped, put aside for winter feeding?

The most likely place the queen will be right now is the drawn shallow. I'd put a QX either side of it to hopefully isolate her. Checking for eggs in a couple of days to verify.

Thank you. The brood frames were a long way off being capped last week, but that might well have changed by now. I like the suggestion to keep them for Winter feeding.
I agree the queen will probably be in the drawn super and I missed a trick by not fitting a second excluder. Good call, thank you.

 

[Sutty]

Once you have established a brood nest in a brood chamber you could put one of the honey filled deep frames (bruised if capped) into the middle of it at a time to get them to empty it.

 

[The Poot]

Checked the colony today and found additional capped brood in the super and honey being stored in the third brood box I’d given them, having drawn out most of the foundation. The next brood box down has patches of brood where honey has been consumed or moved. I removed four fully capped frames and fitted foundation back. It is clear the queen is below the excluder and the movement of honey upwards has begun. I fitted an additional drawn “wet” super on top of the stack and will review things next week.