Failing Queen - Hyde Hives Long Hive

[maggiescrase123]

Hi, I need some advice. Just going into my second year of beekeeping - so a novice. I have a Hyde Hives double long hive with two colonies. Hive A is my original colony, Hive B is the result of a pre-emptive split in June last year. Going into winter Hive A was flourishing, lots of stores and Hive B obviously much smaller. I noticed over the last few weeks that Hive A just was not as busy as Hive B so yesterday afternoon I opened the hive for a first inspection. I found the Queen, however there was very little brood - just two small areas on two frames with a mix of worker and drone brood. The Queen is probably failing - is my best course of action - dispatch the queen and then combine the two colonies - but how to do this in a long hive? What other actions can I take?

 

[Murox]

Any signs of supercedure? any open brood ?

 

[pargyle]

I would not be too hasty .. some queens are a bit slow to start getting in to their stride at the start of the season, she's laying but perhaps not as much as you would like. I'd give her a couple of weeks, there's plenty of time. If she's not performing there's every chance that they will supercede - watch out for a queen cell or two. If you see queen cells don't panic and don't go knocking them all down.

If she does not get going and there's no sign of supercedure and you decide she's for the chop then you can combine the two colonies .. Kill the queen, make an empty frame up cover it with a sheet of newspaper, overlap the edges and create a new division board with it in front,of your existing division board making sure there are no gaps around the edges. Remove the existing divider. Basically just the same as you would a vertical hive when you do a newspaper combine.

You could also try the air freshener method of combining the colonies - I've never done it with my Long Deep Hive but it works very well for vertical hives.

 

[ericbeaumont]

how to do this in a long hive? What other actions can I take?

I'm not familiar with Hyde long hives and assume that there is no option to unite by removing a division board. Have a chat with Hyde on Tuesday: they may have a solution.

An option: drill a hole in the wall & fit a rotating entrance. Kill queen B and transfer the brood over to Hive A, close front entrance B and give bees B time to recognise the Q+ pheromone and walk through the hole in the wall to A.

Come to think of it, to save drilling, leave the two crownboards open, remove & kill the dud queen, transfer the brood over to A, close entrance B and leave the CBs open a while. They'll pick up the scent eventually.

As Murox & Pargyle have said, they may supersede her, but from your description it sounds as if they don't have enough young nurse bees to feed and produce a quality queen.

 

[Murox]

You could also try the air freshener method of combining the colonies - I've never done it with my Long Deep Hive but it works very well for vertical hives.

Yes it works. Had to combine one last year in a hurry, I probably used too much of course but no obvious difficulties.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I'm not familiar with Hyde long hives and assume that there is no option to unite by removing a division board.

there is - you can have it as a single hive if you like - just a matter of removing a dummy/follower board

 

[ericbeaumont]

removing a dummy/follower board

Oh, blimey, so easy! Use Pargyles newspaper division board method or air freshener.

 

[pargyle]

Oh, blimey, so easy! Use Pargyles newspaper division board method or air freshener.

It is one of the joys of a long deep hive ... splitting the colony to start a new one is ever easier. Stick the dividing board in the middle, make sure you have frames of eggs in both sides and stores, open up the second entrance and walk away ... You don't even have to know where the queen is ... the side that's queenless will make one.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Oh, blimey, so easy! Use Pargyles newspaper division board method or air freshener.

there is probably also a queen excluder insert, so a doddle doing unites

 

[pargyle]

there is probably also a queen excluder insert, so a doddle doing unites

They stopped making queen excluders as, in Long Hives, the bees separate the honey they store naturally in the outer frames so an excluder is not needed .. indeed, I found an excluder was a hindrance and I ended up with more stores above the brood in the frames than when there was no excluder. But - a divider made with varroa mesh with a hole in the middle than could be covered or left open was quite useful for combining.

The Hyde Hives are very nice - at what they cost, they need to be - they appear to have borrowed some ideaa from my LDH ... hinged gable roof, clear crownboards, the drawers for the inspection boards ! The only thing missing is insulation - I would add insulation in the roof space and block up those silly ventilator/bee escapes in the gable ends and the ventilators in the crown boards.

They are very nicely made.

https://hydehives.co.uk/products/long-hive

 

[maggiescrase123]

Just want to thank everyone for the advice - I'm hopefully going to have another look this afternoon (weather permitting) - and then have another ponder!

 

[ericbeaumont]

have another look

Let us know how you did it, and the outcome.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I don’t think it’s fair to other businesses that you should be advertising your design so blatantly. It’s quite different from a user recommending one.
So I have edited your post.
We wouldn’t allow Thorne or Modern Beekeeping or Paynes etc etc to post details of their boxes in such a way.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I’ll put the post with one or two edits in the beehive construction section. I think it’s better there

 

[rdartington]

I don’t think it’s fair to other businesses that you should be advertising your design so blatantly. It’s quite different from a user recommending one.
So I have edited your post.
We wouldn’t allow Thorne or Modern Beekeeping or Paynes etc etc to post details of their boxes in such a way.

You seem not to have read my post. It clearly says that I do not make or sell hives, only offer free information on an alternative design that , IMHO, can better suit hobby beekeepers today (has suited my own hobby beekeeping for over 47 years after using Nats for ten years). It is of course entirely up to hobbyists to decide whether to make at home very economically (less than £100) and use very safely (no heavy lifting) and productively (my best yielded 100lbs last year). So lumping me with Thorne’s et al is way off the mark.
I had thought the purpose of this Forum was to express opinion and invite discussion. Seems not. So not worth spending time on?

 

[rdartington]

I’ll put the post with one or two edits in the beehive construction section. I think it’s better there

Thank you.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thank you.

You’re very welcome. Interested parties can discuss it there:

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/dartington-long-deep-hive.54925/

 

[maggiescrase123]

Today I combined the two colonies using the newspaper method (my mentor came to assist). She confirmed that Hive A was failing, low number of bees, very few eggs/larvae but luckily no sign of disease, however we could not locate the queen so we closed up and took a first look into Hive B at the other end of the long hive. This colony could not have been more different - bursting at the seams so to speak - so much so that there were several queen cells with contents hence I will have to do some reactive swarm control early next week once the two colonies have combined. We then went back into Hive A, eventually found the queen and dispatched her. As pargyle suggested, I removed the fixed partition between the two colonies - covered the unused queen excluder with newspaper (came with the hive but have never used it) moved the frames from Hive A up to it and closed up. One question - what will happen with the flying bees returning to the entrance into Hive A? - obviously can't close it at the moment. How will they orientate to using the entrance into Hive B? Or will they not? How long will it take the bees to assimilate? My plan(?) if all goes well is to replace the central divider and use the now empty Hive A for swarm control next week.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

This colony could not have been more different - bursting at the seams so to speak - so much so that there were several queen cells with contents hence I will have to do some reactive swarm control early next week

That will probably be too late - do it now or they'll be gone

 

[pargyle]

Firstly, if you have queen cells with contents .. NOW is the time to do your Artificial swarm ! If you leave it until they are capped it will be too late -they will have swarmed !

You should find that the bees will sort themselves out with the newspaper combine by tomorrow - you only have one queen in there now so you don't have to wait to do your A/S. Exactly as per your plan ... if you are worried about them not being combined just give both sides a squirt of air freshener, remove the queen excluder and let them get on with it.

An hour or so later - do your A/S.