Bit of a disaster.

[Matt77]

Not sure why I'm posting other than it being cathartic!

Anyway, inspected my strongest colony following the varroa treatment to assess stores etc. All good, low varroa drops, 7 frames of brood, loads of bees & spotted the queen. I had decided to leave them a super for the winter so removed qx and placed the super back on. I was on to about the 4th frame of the super & the Mrs says "ooh there's the queen again" She was in a ball of workers & hardly moving. I isolated her in a marking cage where she slowly expired. I have just United them with an AS I did in July so hopefully rescued the situation but I'm pretty sure the AS queen isn't quite as good as the old one. Hopefully she'll see them through until the spring.

No idea what happened, I must have squished her at some point. Kicking myself doesn't describe it!

 

[enrico]

So she went from the bb into the super. Seems unusual that she rushed upstairs! ( presuming of course you put the super on the top) just a thought but I take it she was the only queen in there!
E

 

[Matt77]

Yes, that's why I'm a bit confused. I'd smoked the bees in the BB down so as not to crush any, so was very surprised to see her upstairs within a couple of mins of putting the super on. I also had thought there may be more than one queen but she was marked & I had seen her in the BB previously. We then checked & double checked for a second queen. I'm not sure how a second queen could have been in the super though it had a qx on.

 

[enrico]

Well I am glad you had another hive to put them with but it does all sound odd. It takes a while for a balled queen to get killed and I can't understand why they would do that to an established queen. Let me know if the newly combined hives are ok. Is that as queen marked?

 

[Matt77]

Hi Enrico, I'm not going to blame the bees its more than likley somthing I did or did not do. Problem is if I don't know what I did I can't prevent happening in the future. Yes the 'new' queen is marked, she is this year's daughter of the one which died yesterday. Although I have my doubts about her, not exactly spraying eggs all over the place. Beggars can't be choosers I guess. I'll update the thread as & when I know how they are getting on.

As an aside, having never done a unite before how long should I leave it before opening them up & sorting the frames etc? I've read stuff which says 24hrs, 2 days & a week!

 

[enrico]

I give them a couple of days to calm down. Good luck
E

 

[Matt77]

Cheers Enrico.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I looked down into a nuc I had just moved withiut its full complement of frames and there was the Q perfectly decapitated. I have no idea how; it happens. But it sounds more like they killed her when you say "ball" and "slowly expire". That happens too in long inspections which is why we keep them as short and as infrequent as we can.

 

[Matt77]

Is it common for them to kill the queen during a long inspection? What would you class a long inspection? I reckon they'd been open for 10 mins.

 

[Tomo]

I don't want to sound rude...but are you absolutely sure that you didn't have two Queens in the hive? I know it's not supposed to happen but it does. This year two Qs went out to mate, both ended up in the same hive without me realising. I took what I thought was the only q out to introduce a brought in Q, only to find one week later a totally new Q in the hive! Expensive Q long gone/balled/whatever. Of course the other hive was then Q-. Eventually had to dump the entire hive outside the rest as they would not make or accept a new Q! Just goes to show: expect the unexpected! I hope this helps.

 

[Matt77]

Hi tomo, I can't be absoloutly 100% sure I only had one queen. But the queen I saw in the brood box was definitely the same queen which was in the super 10 mins later because she was marked. My first thoughts were there has to be more than one queen & I did check but its entirely possible I missed her if she was there. I'm intending to inspect them & re arrange the boxes on thurs or fri, i'll report back hopefully I don't find two ex queens.

 

[Matt77]

Morning all, I intend to inspect this colony after work today. Having never done a unite before I've got a few questions about the best way to re arrange the hive.

At the moment it is as follows, Floor, Q- broodbox, super, qx, Q+ brood box. United over paper on Sun eve. I've been & had look, paper outside & no mass casulties.

If I inspect & all is well I intend to place the the Q+ box on top the old Q- box, remove the super, feed & winter them on a double brood & sort it out in spring. My thinking is that there is a lot brood still in the old brood box & I've (hopefully) got brood in the new box too. Does that sound reasonable? Have I missed anyhting?

They are in poly, not sure if that makes any difference?

 

[Heather]

I would put the queenright colony at the base. Remove QE and super. Either shake bees out of the super or rhombus them down. If there are stores in the super put it above the crown board with a tiny gap to allow bees up to rob and take stores down.

 

[Matt77]

Thanks heather, that sounds like a good idea. I hadn't thought about letting them rob thier own stores back. Great idea, I'll be doing that!

 

[Erichalfbee]

I have just sorted one.
Move hive aside place a new floor and brood box in its place. Go through top box and transfer all the brood frames. Make sure you have the queen. Add any frames with brood from the Q - hive. Do what heather suggests with super or nadir. Makes no difference. Bees will have to moves stores regardless. I like mine in one box for the winter. If you have too much brood you still have the option of leaving the Q - box on top or donating the brood to another colony

 

[Matt77]

Thanks all for the advice so far, its a big help

 

[Matt77]

Just a little update to this thread. Looks like the unite worked, queen was still there & laying although not paricularly strongly, but she is the only queen I've got so I'll just let her crack on. Just a thought though & I'm probably being optimistic but she'd only been laying a week before I put apiguard on 8/8, so is there a possibility she's been slow to start for that reason?

I also checked the Q- box and there was no eggs. The Q+ box was over a qx so it looks like there had only been the 1 queen before I fluffed the job up on Sunday.