First full inspection - found issues!

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Honeypi

New Bee
Joined
Feb 14, 2015
Messages
44
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0
Location
Manchester
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
2
We've just done our first full inspection of our two hives and have found a couple of issues.

Hive A:
This hive had a lot of bees and was the stronger going into winter. However, the inside of the hive was very damp with a lot of slugs and woodlice. There was minimal mould but it was very damp so I imagine it's only a matter of time before this takes hold. What can we do help reduce and prevent this? What might be causing it?
We didn't find the queen but I'm not all that surprised as it was very full of bees. There was young brood so I'm confident she's in there. This just menas that we couldn't put the QE back in.

Hive B:
This colony was weaker going into winter and I was worried that they might not make it. The hive was dry but we spotted a very small number of bees (1-2 in total) which were suffering from DWV. We'd not done the second round of varroa treatment in Feb/Jan (just oxalic dribble) as the weather was foul. Is it too late or risky to do another couple of treatments at this time of year?

Thanks in advance!
 
It sounds like you could do with a clean box to transfer them into to allow you to look at the old one and investigate and repair.
 
We were thinking of moving them to 14x12 so that would allow us to fix up the old brood box. It might take a bit longer but we don't have a spare BB at the moment. Thanks for the suggestion.

Both hives have open mesh floors.
 
More importantly - had you closed over any gaping holes in the crown board? Open mesh floors are fine and help the bees regulate hive temperatures and humidity - a roaring gale through the middle of the hive helps noone, although it does sound to me as if there is water coming from elsewhere as well - maybe look at where the hive is located, roof issues or just a broken box.
 
More importantly - had you closed over any gaping holes in the crown board? Open mesh floors are fine and help the bees regulate hive temperatures and humidity - a roaring gale through the middle of the hive helps noone, although it does sound to me as if there is water coming from elsewhere as well - maybe look at where the hive is located, roof issues or just a broken box.

The roof is in good shape (if anything, it's in better shape than Hive B) and the boxes appear to be in good shape.

I think I'll start getting the 14x12 frames ready over the next few weeks and will keep monitoring it until it's warmed up enough to do the Bailey transfer on to the larger frames. While on the subject, what kind of temperatures do you think are needed to get this going?
 
Bailey.......I don't like it. I think it is wasteful of the bees time and resources.
I would put the short frames straight into your bigger hive and work them out.
Yes they will build underneath but it won't necessarily be drone, you know.
 
Bailey.......I don't like it. I think it is wasteful of the bees time and resources.

:iagree:
in this case as it's a frame size change rather than hygiene - get them into a bigger box swapping most of the unused frames for 14x12 and work the rest out later. Bit too cold to attempt at the moment though, you need good comb drawing weather
 
:iagree:
in this case as it's a frame size change rather than hygiene - get them into a bigger box swapping most of the unused frames for 14x12 and work the rest out later. Bit too cold to attempt at the moment though, you need good comb drawing weather

I've tried this before (was planning to switch to 14x12 last year) and the mess that it made during inspection with several inches of drawn comb below the frames immediately changed my mind.

Once the damp hive has been sterilised and patched up as required we plan to use it for a new colony later this year or next year.

Having said that, if there's a way of avoiding the masses of unsupported comb under the standard frames please let me know as this would allow me to get them out of that box ASAP.
 
Regarding Hive B and the varroa/DWV issue, is there anything we can do at this time of the year?
 
if there's a way of avoiding the masses of unsupported comb under the standard frames please let me know

Just live with it - it's only a few inches and no big deal, just be a bit more careful when inspecting until you work those frames out, or if you're that concerned dummy up the space below those frames.
 
place your 14 x12 box on top of your existing box, and feed, when the bees are drawing comb and the queen is laying in the 14 x12 reverse boxes and place queen excluder above 14 x12, easier and less chew for bees.
 
Regarding Hive B and the varroa/DWV issue, is there anything we can do at this time of the year?

Vaporise OA if you think that the mite may be out of controll?

Trickling the stuff in deep mid Winter always seem to cause major Spring problems IMOVHLO !

Yeghes da
 
If you need to extend your frames the big T do extension kits to go to 14x12.
From what I've read on here they don't have many fans but it may be an option for you as a temp fix.
 
If you need to extend your frames the big T do extension kits to go to 14x12.
From what I've read on here they don't have many fans but it may be an option for you as a temp fix.

alternative possibility would be to pull off the bottom bars and let the bees extend the comb down in a 14 x 12 box:hairpull:

May find it full of drone brood... which may be a good or a bad thing!!

Have fun....

Yeghes da
 
Running brood+half langstroth I often have the situation where the best QC are on the bottom of the half ..
These regularly end up in a nuc box and then get migrated to a full hive when the new queen starts laying. I've never had any issues with them building comb down if there are full drawn frames on both sides. The only time I have had issues is putting a 2nd super frames or an undrawn frame next to it.
In a couple of instances it's not until I've come to replace a frame due to age that I've noticed that it was a half built down..
 
Vaporise OA if you think that the mite may be out of controll?

Trickling the stuff in deep mid Winter always seem to cause major Spring problems IMOVHLO !

Yeghes da

I think you'll agree with me, icanhopit, that it's too late in any case as the damage has been done by then. Oxalic treatments in Autumn to protect the winter bees and avoid virus' like DWV. I still struggle to understand why people on here continue to wait till winter (Dec to Feb. ) :)
 
Regarding Hive B and the varroa/DWV issue, is there anything we can do at this time of the year?

I suggest you do a search on this forum for 'Hivemakers' advice on Varroa treatment with the vapourizor method. Best method in my opinion for treatment of varroa. Well worth a read. :)
 
alternative possibility would be to pull off the bottom bars and let the bees extend the comb down in a 14 x 12 box:hairpull:

No need to pull out the bottom bars - they'll just extend downwards from them - gives it a little extra strength as well - far less disruption to the bees at minimal inconvenience to the beek :)
 
If you need to extend your frames the big T do extension kits to go to 14x12.
From what I've read on here they don't have many fans but it may be an option for you as a temp fix.

the extensions are useless, basically they are two hoffman converter spacers and cut down SN1 (bottom half) The wax foundation normally falls out before you get the extended frame back in the new box then the hoffman convertors fall off because the nails they give you are gimp pins and too small
 

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