Bit of a pickle! Suggestions please

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BJay&DJ

New Bee
Joined
Jan 30, 2010
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Location
East Kent. UK
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
Seven
Well, my one and only hive appeared to be thriving. lots of pollen and activity, Opened it to for full inspection. No signs of queen cells. Brood and a half, as I fed them on their own stores. Heres the problem. The super that I left on the hive, and that has become the `half` has castellated spacing, and I missed the opportunity to slip in a QE. It appears to me today that the `half`is virtually full of drone, due to the appearance of the cappings (slightly domed). Or, due to the enforced increased spacing, could this be `extended`worker cappings? Down below in the standard depth brood box, I have nornal looking brood etc. I need to put it right, revert to a single national brood. Please offer you thoughts and suggestions. Thanks in advance.
 
It is either drone brood or worker. There is no such thing as extended worker cappings so I suspect that your super frames have been outfitted with drone foundation and now you are finding out why it is not the best of ideas.

Put the super under the brood box. wait a few days and put in the excluder to make sure she is up. Check the brood box in a few days time to ensure she is actually there and think about supering too.

It's not a disaster but a situation that needs to be managed.

Also you might want to think carefully about starting another colony. Just one is not so handy at times.

PH
 
Drone foundation,good thinking PH,that never crossed my mind when reading the post..
 
Thanks.

Little grey cells have a bit of life left...lol

PH
 
box full of capped drone brood = box with most of your varroa ready for you to remove
first shake off all the bees then pop the frames in a freezer overnight then pop on your queen excluder and put back the super. Only two downsides I can think of:
1, dead drone larvae difficult for the bees to drag through the excluder
2, bees will consider the super part of the brood nest and store pollen and leave it a bit empty ready for the queen to lay in
 
I would just scrap the super,like mbc said its ideal place for varroa,I would make sure the queens in the brood box,and then put a new super on with new foundation.
 
I agree with the 'remove the drone' suggestion, but do not lose the opportunity to improve your knowledge of the varroa levels within your colony. Throw away the drone brood by all means - but decap and inspect first - varroa on brood is relatively easy to spot.
 
I agree with the 'remove the drone' suggestion, but do not lose the opportunity to improve your knowledge of the varroa levels within your colony. Throw away the drone brood by all means - but decap and inspect first - varroa on brood is relatively easy to spot.

of course ! obvious really, I must be getting lazy in my old age
 
I would check a percentage of the drone larvae for mites,if none found i would allow the rest to emerge,to much culling of drones going on, drones are needed as well,or as long as we need queens mated that is.
 
i would place the super in question on the floor, then place a qx to stop her laying in there, brood box after with a another qx and a super if needed.
 
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