Busy day yesterday

[curry756]

OK, so this didnt work. The QC didn't hatch and just contained a black small bee that was moist but dead. Assuming it was chalk brood. Lots of Queen cups but not actual charged cells. Its been 2 weeks today that I split them, so they don't have anymore that they can turn into Queens either. So I am leaving it until next monday (3 weeks) and I will amalgamate the bees back into one colony. I don't have any more brood from my other hive as they only have 3/4 frames, as I replaced all (bar one) of these 2 weeks ago. So I don't want to weaken this hive further. This seems to be my only option. Back to one hive. But my mentor has a colony for me, but they are in Langstroths at the moment. So plan to move that over to a national then I am back to my 2 hives again.

Thanks for all your comments though - its nice to know I was doing the correct thing.

 

[dn170221]

Thanks for the updates very interesting and informative!!

 

[Loubee7]

 

[beeno]

Hi Curry,
Good outcome IMHO. Better to have one stronger colony. Thanks for sharing.

 

[curry756]

Thanks

A few more more questions.

The bank holiday Monday will be the 21 days offer the split, so all of the brood will have hatched by then.

So my question is when to do the amalgamation?

I am going to combine by putting the queenless brood on top of the strong colony with newspaper and QE. I am doing this method to protect my existing queen as we found a small number eggs in the queenless hive at the weekend but couldn't find a queen. So just want to make sure I don't end up with 2 queens.

But when should I do it?
I am away for the weekend so was thinking I could combine on Friday and remove it on Monday? Or should I combine on Monday and remove on Wednesday? I don't want them using the top brood as a super, but there will be a lot of stores in the top one. So they might use some of it over the weekend before I take it all off?

Thoughts /suggestions please. And thanks in advance

 

[beeno]

Hi Curry,
Sounds like you have a queen in there after all that emerged god knows when and they resealed the QC. Not unusual apparently. She may be a 'scrub queen' not much different in size to a worker bee therefore difficult to find. Too early for laying workers IMHO. Have another go at finding her.
I did what you are contemplating because I could not find the queen. Day after, nothing had happened. Took advice from nice man at P****s, as I was buying some gear at the time, who said that the bees will not abandon their queen (no brood at the time thereof the unite, just eggs that never hatched). So, I lifted top box off together with QE and placed it in front of entrance of bottom box. Brushed all the bees off the frames into top box and placed frames into bottom box and closed it up. Then I laid box on side and all the bees marched in fanning like mad. This I felt gave me a last chance to find the queen which I didn't. Their smells must have mingled sufficiently overnight for no fighting to have occurred. Needless to say, got caned on here for my method.
Some people spray them with fragrance, and swear by it, which I have never tried myself.
Any other offers peeps?

 

[curry756]

Damn. I will look again in Wednesday to double check for the queen or any new eggs. There wasn't a lot of eggs and the bees didn't seam to be tending to this part of the comb so I think they are abandoned or from before the split. I will double check though as they should have hatched by Wednesday. If not then they I can assume they are old.

All being well and there is no queen should I combine on Friday and take off the old brood on Monday. Or should I wait until Monday to start and take off the old brood on Wednesday?

 

[BeeJayBee]

If the colony is calm the chances are there is a queen in there. You either need to be patient, and maybe see if somebody with more experience can look at the colony with you.

Two weeks from a split isn't really long enough for a new queen to start laying, so you need to check your timings.

It all depends on when she is taken her mating flights and how effective they were - she's receptive to mating for 3 weeks or so after emerging, then there's a week or more while her body deals with the mating before she starts to lay.

 

[beeno]

Hi Curry,
I would do it on Monday in case you get a stalemate as I did.
Best of luck.

 

[curry756]

If the colony is calm the chances are there is a queen in there. You either need to be patient, and maybe see if somebody with more experience can look at the colony with you.

Two weeks from a split isn't really long enough for a new queen to start laying, so you need to check your timings.

It all depends on when she is taken her mating flights and how effective they were - she's receptive to mating for 3 weeks or so after emerging, then there's a week or more while her body deals with the mating before she starts to lay.

Humm another good point. I didn't see any queen cells though as the only one that was there never hatched and had a dead larvae inside. I have just looked again inside this hives and there is only a small amount of sealed brood left that the bees are tending to. I have had a chat with my mentor also and we agreed that I should still amalgamate them back with together with a QE just in case. This will give me a stronger colony going into summer and ultimately winter as well.

The plan was never to split them in the first place - it was the result of finding a charged and capped QC during first proper inspection 2ish weeks ago. My mentor also has a second colony for me, so its not like I am losing out on a colony either.

Thanks for all the advice though - really good to weigh up the options etc.

As Beeno suggests I will start it on Easter Monday (exactly 21 days after the split) and hope to get the brood off after a couple of day. Then I can clean and reuse the National hardware for my new colony and get painting the new WBC Outer Casing.

Exciting times ahead for me as a beekeeper. Loving every minute of it so far.

Thanks again