Any idea what has happened here?

[slangers]

OK, so here is the scenario.

I had 2 colonies that were for some reason not queen right. Out of the blue both queens seemed to disappear. One was a queen formed from a swarm cell and the other was the original queen which swarmed and was recaptured. All had seemed well and then about 2 weeks ago I noticed no eggs.

To sort this out I decided to:
1. Unite the two colonies.
2. Purchase new queen for the united colony.

First of all I united the 2 colonies over newspaper and I set the new queen up in a 3 frame nuc. The uniting went well as far as I could tell and two days ago I moved the nuc with new queen so that they were close to the hive site. Went out today with the intention of uniting the nuc with the new colony, again over newspaper. However, when I got home there was a swirling cloud of bees in the garden as if they were swarming. However they didn't leave the apiary and just flew around, with a small cluster forming over the nuc box.

I opened up the nuc box and it was more or less empty of bees, just a handful and no obvious sign of the queen (who I had checked yesterday to confirm that she was laying). There were bees all over the entrance and a few dead wasps at the bottom with a couple of dead bees. Another mass of bees formed around the entrance to the hive, where there was quite a scrum with workers clearly stopping drones from entering (also a big gang of drones settled 3-4 feet away. Inside the brood box of the hive there were also very few bees.

So my question is, what the hell has happened? Would the workers in the hive form a swarm with a queen sitting in a nearby nuc? Has the queen left? Have I just wasted £50 on a queen that I've lost? What am I doing wrong? Is all lost (August and we I have a possibly a queenless colony again- not much hope for it now).

I've put the frames with eggs in a box on top of the colony, over newspaper and left it at that.

 

[Obee1]

OK, so here is the scenario.

I had 2 colonies that were for some reason not queen right. Out of the blue both queens seemed to disappear. One was a queen formed from a swarm cell and the other was the original queen which swarmed and was recaptured. All had seemed well and then about 2 weeks ago I noticed no eggs.

To sort this out I decided to:
1. Unite the two colonies.
2. Purchase new queen for the united colony.

First of all I united the 2 colonies over newspaper and I set the new queen up in a 3 frame nuc. The uniting went well as far as I could tell and two days ago I moved the nuc with new queen so that they were close to the hive site. Went out today with the intention of uniting the nuc with the new colony, again over newspaper. However, when I got home there was a swirling cloud of bees in the garden as if they were swarming. However they didn't leave the apiary and just flew around, with a small cluster forming over the nuc box.

I opened up the nuc box and it was more or less empty of bees, just a handful and no obvious sign of the queen (who I had checked yesterday to confirm that she was laying). There were bees all over the entrance and a few dead wasps at the bottom with a couple of dead bees. Another mass of bees formed around the entrance to the hive, where there was quite a scrum with workers clearly stopping drones from entering (also a big gang of drones settled 3-4 feet away. Inside the brood box of the hive there were also very few bees.

So my question is, what the hell has happened? Would the workers in the hive form a swarm with a queen sitting in a nearby nuc? Has the queen left? Have I just wasted £50 on a queen that I've lost? What am I doing wrong? Is all lost (August and we I have a possibly a queenless colony again- not much hope for it now).

I've put the frames with eggs in a box on top of the colony, over newspaper and left it at that.

Oh dear. Another queen problem. I've had so many problem queens this year. Could your queen be in the nuc? When I tried to shake out a load of bees in the woods ( long story!) within 20 minutes, before I could load the car with the nuc containing the queen in her cage - the bees had flown about 200 yards and found the nuc. I had the entrance shut but there was a mesh floor. They covered the outside of the nuc and flew around in a cloud.
I'm a newbie myself and someone more experienced will be along soon - but have you United the whole nuc to the new colony? the queen may well be in there somewhere.

 

[slangers]

Yes, I have united. If she is in there, all should be well. The swarm like activity is worrying me though.

 

[pargyle]

OK, so here is the scenario.

I had 2 colonies that were for some reason not queen right. Out of the blue both queens seemed to disappear. One was a queen formed from a swarm cell and the other was the original queen which swarmed and was recaptured. All had seemed well and then about 2 weeks ago I noticed no eggs.

///////

I've put the frames with eggs in a box on top of the colony, over newspaper and left it at that.

Where did the frames with eggs come from ? You must have had a laying queen there somewhere until at least a couple of days ago ...

What do you think is going to happen with a frame of eggs in an empty box above a newspaper .. they will be dead in no time ..

If you had a frame with eggs surely you must have had some frames of brood and larvae as well ?

I would have been inclined to wait and see what was happening before doing any combining ... there is no plan to what you have done. To answer your question brutally ... Yes it sounds like a lost cause at present - the bees obviously knew what they were doing and you have now interfered with it.

Weak colonies can suffer from wasp attacks at this time of the year but reducing the entrance down to one bee space and putting a sheet of glass or perspex propped in front of the entrance will help them enormously in defending the hive.

 

[pargyle]

Oh dear. Another queen problem. I've had so many problem queens this year. Could your queen be in the nuc? When I tried to shake out a load of bees in the woods ( long story!) within 20 minutes, before I could load the car with the nuc containing the queen in her cage - the bees had flown about 200 yards and found the nuc. I had the entrance shut but there was a mesh floor. They covered the outside of the nuc and flew around in a cloud.
I'm a newbie myself and someone more experienced will be along soon - but have you United the whole nuc to the new colony? the queen may well be in there somewhere.

Of course they will do that ... you have to completely REMOVE the hive they were inhabiting or they will try to reinhabit it ! They will still return to the place where the hive was but when they find there is no box there they will try and beg their way into another hive nearby.

 

[slangers]

Frames with eggs are frames from the nuc, which the new queen laid.

i have entrance reducers on all of my hives so doing my best to keep the wasps down.

You seem to be suggesting that I have messed up. What should I have done differently? Should a new queen have gone straight into the combined colony? I need advice not just to be told that I've done it wrong. And what were the bees doing this afternoon?

 

[Erichalfbee]

However, when I got home there was a swirling cloud of bees in the garden

Can I just ask.......before you moved the nuc next to the hive you were going to unite it with, where was it?

 

[slangers]

It was about 10 metres away.

 

[theeggman]

It was about 10 metres away.

Did you move it one go???

You may have lots of lost bees because 'home has been moved'!!

 

[Hawklord]

No eggs doesn't mean no queen. If the queen was failing or swarmed there would have been queen cells. You acted too hastily in my opinion.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It was about 10 metres away.

not heard of the three feet three mile rule then? unless you moved the nuc three feet at a time over a period of a fortnight, what you seem to have done is moved their home away - foraging bees have flown the hive, gone back to the original location and are milling around wondering where the hive has gone leaving very few bees left in the nuc. If you'd have read other threads discussing uniting on here you'd have realised there was no need to move the nuc closer before the unite, but that's by the by - just hope the bees now beg their way back into the other hive and that the queen and brood haven't chilled in what's left of the nuc.
It also looks as if the wasps have taken advantage of the situation.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Can I just ask.......before you moved the nuc next to the hive you were going to unite it with, where was it?

It was about 10 metres away.

Did you move it one go???

You may have lots of lost bees because 'home has been moved'!!

You also moved one colony to unite it with another, did you move in slowly until they were next to each other, or did you move it more than 3 ft in one go?

Making the assumption that you moved the bees too far away from their original site, and the swirling mass was a lot of lost bees trying to find somewhere to go, you may (or may not) be able to recover some of the bees for the nuc by putting it back where it came from. If my assumption is wrong, there may be another solution, but it's still worth checking about moving bees.

There's some information about on Dave Cushman's site http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/movingbees.html
Here's an extract "There is a well known saying in beekeeping that in the summer you should move a colony less than 3 feet, or more than 3 miles and within reason this works well. In my experience bees seem to remember their location for about 3 weeks, so remember 3,3 and 3."

 

[pargyle]

Frames with eggs are frames from the nuc, which the new queen laid.

i have entrance reducers on all of my hives so doing my best to keep the wasps down.

You seem to be suggesting that I have messed up. What should I have done differently? Should a new queen have gone straight into the combined colony? I need advice not just to be told that I've done it wrong. And what were the bees doing this afternoon?

Well ... without putting too fine a point on it - it would certainly seem that you have screwed up ! The problem is that I don't think we actually know what you have done ... I, clearly, misinterpreted your original post and it would appear that what you did was try to combine a Nuc with another hive where the Nuc was several metres away originally. If that is what you did then that was your first mistake ...

What you have done subsequently (putting the frames with eggs in a box above the other hive with a newspaper beneath) may be your second mistake as unattended eggs/larvae will rapidly die without nurse bees to keep the colony temperature up and feed them.

The third possible mistake (and as yet indeterminate situation) is whether you actually have tried to combine two hives with queens in them .. without first being absolutely certain of the Q- or Q+ state of the hives ... So, as I said originally (and Hawklord subsequently) your combining was IMO a bit premature.

What you have now may be retrievable but you need to find the queen in the combined hives or at least be sure that she is laying ... you may need to adjust the space as two boxes with too few bees will not help them. The comments about wasps is also relevant ... a reduced entrance is not one bee space ... and a sheet of glass or perspex WILL help as wasps are not as clever as your bees and won't find their way around the sides of the glass as easily. What you should be aware of is that once the wasps find an easy target a weak colony will be robbed out and dead in no time.

If you can confirm exactly what you have done and what you think is the queen situation then you may get some more practical advice ...

 

[Hawklord]

OK, so here is the scenario.

I had 2 colonies that were for some reason not queen right. Out of the blue both queens seemed to disappear. One was a queen formed from a swarm cell and the other was the original queen which swarmed and was recaptured. All had seemed well and then about 2 weeks ago I noticed no eggs.

To sort this out I decided to:
1. Unite the two colonies.
2. Purchase new queen for the united colony.

First of all I united the 2 colonies over newspaper and I set the new queen up in a 3 frame nuc. The uniting went well as far as I could tell and two days ago I moved the nuc with new queen so that they were close to the hive site. Went out today with the intention of uniting the nuc with the new colony, again over newspaper. However, when I got home there was a swirling cloud of bees in the garden as if they were swarming. However they didn't leave the apiary and just flew around, with a small cluster forming over the nuc box.

I opened up the nuc box and it was more or less empty of bees, just a handful and no obvious sign of the queen (who I had checked yesterday to confirm that she was laying). There were bees all over the entrance and a few dead wasps at the bottom with a couple of dead bees. Another mass of bees formed around the entrance to the hive, where there was quite a scrum with workers clearly stopping drones from entering (also a big gang of drones settled 3-4 feet away. Inside the brood box of the hive there were also very few bees.

So my question is, what the hell has happened? Would the workers in the hive form a swarm with a queen sitting in a nearby nuc? Has the queen left? Have I just wasted £50 on a queen that I've lost? What am I doing wrong? Is all lost (August and we I have a possibly a queenless colony again- not much hope for it now).

I've put the frames with eggs in a box on top of the colony, over newspaper and left it at that.

Did you perform an Artificial swarm on your original colony, if so what date? What date did your new queen from the artificial swarm come into lay? Perhaps your first 2 queens stopped laying due to weather/stores. When you made the nuc up and introduced the new queen, did she start laying, if so you should have used those eggs as test frames for the 2 colonies.

 

[slangers]

OK, so lots of opinions pointing in the direction of me being hasty or making errors. Would be useful to have some advice on what to do differently next time.

BTW- one of the missing queens was marked and having searched carefully through the hive I established that she really wasn't there. The other queen was a new queen from a swarm cell and had never laid eggs- suspect that she didn't mate properly.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Never introduce a new queen to a queen-right colony.
Colonies are not that often bereft of their queen. You must make sure with a test frame or two.
When uniting two colonies there is absolutely no need to move them next to each other. Chewing through newspaper into a box full of strange bees is enough to disorientated them sufficiently.
If you do move a hive then you should move them either less than 3 feet or more than 3 miles ( approximately)

 

[Hawklord]

The other queen was a new queen from a swarm cell and had never laid eggs- suspect that she didn't mate properly.

Even though she might not have been mated she would still lay eggs, this is known as a Drone Laying Queen as she could only lay drones.

 

[slangers]

Update on this.

My apparently hasty/misguided plan appears to have worked out well. Now have a queenright hive- eggs, unsealed and sealed brood present and all looking good.

 

[pargyle]

Sometimes you get lucky ... the bees will usually cope with most things that beekeepers inflict on them - it just makes things harder for them !

Well done ...