Failed/filing AS?

aberreef · Jun 10, 2015

I performed an AS on one of my hives two weeks or so ago. Queen and her frame plus one of food and one empty, drawn comb in a bb of foundation with original bb placed 3' to one side. The queen has laid up all the available space and there is some eggs in the little comb they have drawn.

The 'swarmed' bees still haven't settled and remain tightly clustered in the hive, creating a ball of bees covering about 1/3 of the bb and super. There are lots of flying bees but they don't seem to be bringing anything in (unlike the other hives that are piling in the pollen atm) so I'm wondering if they are scouting out a new location?

They have produced a few queen cells that I have torn down.

I haven't experienced anything like this before. I've had the bees settle but run out of forage then swarm but this lot seem totally different :hairpull:

I've given them a litre of 1:1 syrup to try and settle them and two days ago I gave them a part filled super from last year with the intention of removing the empty one today to reduce the amount of space.

Is there anything else I need to be considering to help this colony please.

Cheers

Huw

alldigging · Jun 10, 2015

Just to clarify where is the brood box with the queen - is it on the original position or moved 3' to the side?

You should be bleeding flying bees from the other box that should be making it's new queen. You do that by swapping the position of the hive to the other side of the original spot.

aberreef · Jun 10, 2015

The queen is in her original location and I've switched the virgin hive twice to bleed off bees

oliver90owner · Jun 10, 2015

The queen is in her original location and I've switched the virgin hive twice to bleed off bees-

Err, you only move it once to bleed off flying bees just before queen emergence - to minimise the risk of a cast if two queen cells were left in the parent colony.

Bleeding them off again, presumably by moving the parent hive back to other side of the A/Sed queen will have simply deprived that part of most of its bees. If two weeks after the A/S, there would be few pupating larvae to emerge. So possibly little wonder they are not looking good.

As for the old queen part not doing so very much must be down to a lack of forage. The normal thing is that she has the supers and you feed the others if necessary. Strange way to carry on, IMO.

aberreef · Jun 10, 2015

The virgin side is doing very well, I switched it from one side of the q+ to the other about 5days after the AS. No problem with this hive which has been bringing in pollen and some nectar.

I fed the q+ part after a week or so since they weren't drawing any of the foundation and very few bees were flying. I checked the available laying space and it is fully laid up but the bees haven't drawn any new comb and are clustered extremely tightly, just like a swarm ball.

I checked them this morning, hoping to remove the empty super. They are still clustered but in a column through the three boxes. They are covering five frames in the bb, four in the bottom super and three in the top, not a normal covering of bees they fill all available space, hanging probably four deep between the comb. The honey from the part filled super is gone.

All the other hives, 6 plus 7nucs are doing fine and behaving normally. One hive is q- following a duffed AS but otherwise no problems and certainly nothing like I'm experiencing with the one in question.

Gilberdyke John · Jun 10, 2015

aberreef said:
The virgin side is doing very well, I switched it from one side of the q+ to the other about 5days after the AS. No problem with this hive which has been bringing in pollen and some nectar.

I fed the q+ part after a week or so since they weren't drawing any of the foundation and very few bees were flying. I checked the available laying space and it is fully laid up but the bees haven't drawn any new comb and are clustered extremely tightly, just like a swarm ball.

I checked them this morning, hoping to remove the empty super. They are still clustered but in a column through the three boxes. They are covering five frames in the bb, four in the bottom super and three in the top, not a normal covering of bees they fill all available space, hanging probably four deep between the comb. The honey from the part filled super is gone.

All the other hives, 6 plus 7nucs are doing fine and behaving normally. One hive is q- following a duffed AS but otherwise no problems and certainly nothing like I'm experiencing with the one in question.

Does the foundation the bees are ignoring "smell" right? Maybe spraying it with thin syrup might capture their interest in it?