Hive is a mess

[Jay1911]

Hi all,

I am new to bee keeping having only had a hive for a couple of months. I completed an introduction course last year run by the local bee keeping club then was lucky enough to purchase a full hive + bees from someone local who was moving away.

I have been managing to do regular inspection on the occasional sunny days we have had but have not been able to get down to the hive for nearly three weeks until today.

So after what seemed like weeks of cold wet weather I took the opportunity today, while the sun was shining, to go and inspect the hive.

The bees seemed very calm so hardly any smoke was needed, I worked my way through the supers (there are three on the hive), the top one is untouched and the bottom two really didn't have much activity at all, they seems a lot lighter than last time as well so I guess the bees have been eating the honey to keep them going during the bad weather.

I took off the Queen excluder and was pleased to see they are using the second brood chamber, as I attempted to take out each frame I noticed that they were stuck to the bottom frame, I tried removing a couple but it looks like they have joined the top to the bottom and filled them with grubs.

I didn't carry on as I was doing a lot of damage to the comb and exposing grubs. The inside of the hive looks a mess and I don't know what to do or how to clean/tidy it up, or even if I should ?

Any help/advise would be gratefully received as I really don't know what to do

thanks in advance,

a worried newbee,

James.

 

[enrico]

Ok, remove at least two of the supers. They are trying to heat them and using more stores than they are bringing in. Don't worry about the grubs you are destroying, you HAVE to look at the frames. The queen will have been laying in the top brood box and the bottom may just have a small amount of brood in. The bees will repair any damage you do but you have to look for queen cells every seven to nine days. If you fail to do so they may swarm. They way I stop the bees sticking the frames together is to put the top brood box at right angles to the bottom one. It helps no end to stop them doing what you have found. Take each frame out and scrape the crap off the bottom of the top box frames, grubs and all, but make sure you don't kill the queen!!! Then put it all back together. You need to do this as the situation won't get any better!
Good luck
E

 

[dexter's shed]

you need to get back in and tidy up, or it'll only get worst, removing a cell cells from brace comb is not nice, but it's not the end of the world, hopefully those frames will be filled with even more

 

[Jay1911]

Thank you for the quick reply and advice, I suspected that is what I would have to do, its raining again over here again so will do it as soon as there is a break in the weather.

What should I do if it continues to rain and is cold ?

What should I do with all the comb and grubs I remove ?

It's so obvious now you have said about them trying to keep the extra space warm - doh !

I don't think there is much danger of killing the queen, I've never seen her, I only know she is there because of the brood in there. I've had an experienced bee keeper help me do my first inspection and he couldn't find her either !

Sorry for all the questions and thanks again for your help,

J.

 

[midnight sun]

Hi all,

I am new to bee keeping having only had a hive for a couple of months. I completed an introduction course last year run by the local bee keeping club then was lucky enough to purchase a full hive + bees from someone local who was moving away.

I have been managing to do regular inspection on the occasional sunny days we have had but have not been able to get down to the hive for nearly three weeks until today.

So after what seemed like weeks of cold wet weather I took the opportunity today, while the sun was shining, to go and inspect the hive.

The bees seemed very calm so hardly any smoke was needed, I worked my way through the supers (there are three on the hive), the top one is untouched and the bottom two really didn't have much activity at all, they seems a lot lighter than last time as well so I guess the bees have been eating the honey to keep them going during the bad weather.

I took off the Queen excluder and was pleased to see they are using the second brood chamber, as I attempted to take out each frame I noticed that they were stuck to the bottom frame, I tried removing a couple but it looks like they have joined the top to the bottom and filled them with grubs.

I didn't carry on as I was doing a lot of damage to the comb and exposing grubs. The inside of the hive looks a mess and I don't know what to do or how to clean/tidy it up, or even if I should ?

Any help/advise would be gratefully received as I really don't know what to do

thanks in advance,

a worried newbee,

James.

James I notice you are from Preston. Are you a member of Preston beekeepers? If not then contact them to join. If you are a member then you should have a mentor at this stage as it's standard practice at Preston.
If you need information, then send me a mail via this web site and I'll see if I can help. This forum is excellent, but there is no substitute for a mentor in my view at this time.
Regards Dave

 

[enrico]

It's easier to kill her when you don't know where she is!
Scrape all the crap into a container and bin it.
You have nothing to lose now by waiting for a bit of sunshine. The bees will be calmer while you work through. Just be prepared to go in on the first nice day and have all the equipment handy for an artificial swarm if you find any charged queen cells at all. Then you
WILL need to find the queen if you can!
E

 

[theeggman]

James I notice you are from Preston. Are you a member of Preston beekeepers? If not then contact them to join. If you are a member then you should have a mentor at this stage as it's standard practice at Preston.
If you need information, then send me a mail via this web site and I'll see if I can help. This forum is excellent, but there is no substitute for a mentor in my view at this time.
Regards Dave

It may be best if you PM him your details. With just 2 posts I don't think he can PM you yet, I may be wrong again, I normally am.

 

[pargyle]

It's easier to kill her when you don't know where she is!
Scrape all the crap into a container and bin it.
You have nothing to lose now by waiting for a bit of sunshine. The bees will be calmer while you work through. Just be prepared to go in on the first nice day and have all the equipment handy for an artificial swarm if you find any charged queen cells at all. Then you
WILL need to find the queen if you can!
E

Agree ... except ... scrape all the crap into a container and KEEP it ... wax is a valuable commodity as is propolis ... but make sure you keep it in a sealed container. When you have a bit of it boil it up with some rainwater (can't remember whether Preston is hard or soft water - if it's very soft then tap water is OK) and strain the dead grubs and other crap off - An old saucepan and a wire sieve from the pound shop as neither will be of any use for anything else in the future. Once it sets you can scrape any more 'muck' off the bottom of the wax and you have the start of a nice box of quality wax ... with lots of uses.

 

[Thymallus]

What should I do if it continues to rain and is cold ?
J.

Just do it whatever the weather.
Don't take too much notice of the sunny warm day inspection, nice when you can get them, but to expect every 7th day to be nice and sunny for weekly inspections asks a bit much of our weather patterns, as they rarely do.

A bee inspector joke goes along the lines of what do they do when the weather is too bad to inspect other peoples hives....ans... look at their own as it's the only free time they get.

 

[midnight sun]

It may be best if you PM him your details. With just 2 posts I don't think he can PM you yet, I may be wrong again, I normally am.

Good point theeggman, will do, I think you are right about pm's

 

[Jay1911]

Thanks again everyone, I guess I will gear myself up for the next dry spell, can you really inspect a hive in the rain ?, and clean the hive up, just feel really guilty about killing off all those grubs but I guess its all part of keeping bees.

I am a member of Preston Bee keepers and I've contacted my assigned mentor but he is a busy guy so not always available, it was the club and mentor that helped me move the hive to its current location, I only got 1 sting during that late night was was a good result.

I think I'm ok with the basic stuff, when things are a bit more complicated my inexperience shows but with the good advice I am getting here I'm sure I'll k
learn a lot more,

thanks again,

J.

 

[Thymallus]

can you really inspect a hive in the rain ?
J.

Yes....very reluctant to fly when peeing down. Heavy rain is better than light....not ideal text book conditions but if you HAVE to inspect and weather set in. Be warned YOU will get wet

 

[dexter's shed]

you can always get yourself a large fishing umbrella to use if the weathers bad whilst you open the hive, or a cheap as chips garden gazebo

 

[hedgehog66]

tomorrow afternoon looks ok for a quick inspection / remove supers but a bit on the windy side so i hope the apiary is sheltered.
if you need any help i'm just north of Chorley
happy to help
kath

 

[Jay1911]

Thanks Kath,

If the weather is ok tomorrow I'll give it a go. The hive is in a partially sheltered area so should be ok.

Thanks for the offer of help, I may yet call you,

J.

 

[Jay1911]

A nice break in the weather so got myself over to the hive and geared myself up for the task.

I inspected the hive as I went down through the three supers, I have now removed one as it was not getting used at all.

The two bottom supers both had a good amount of honey in them but not many bees working on them.

I got down to the top brood box and after running a wire between the two brood boxes started to remove and inspect the frames. It looked like they are using the top brood box as honey storage, I could not see any eggs, grubs etc at all in there. I pulled each frame and cleaned of al the comb hanging off the bottom.

I checked through the bottom brood box and could see loads of grubs but no sign of the queen.

The only place I saw queen cells was on the removed comb (there were three).

So the hive is 'tidy' again.

I didn't know what to do with the removed comb, grubs etc so I have left it outside in a covered bucket until I am sure every thing in there is dead then I will try to extract the wax.

This is what I removed:



Thanks for all the advice, it gave me the confidence to get on with the job

J.

 

[Jay1911]

Its just occurred to me that if they are making queen cells then they are getting ready to swarm ?

Any advice on what I should do ?

J.

 

[enrico]

A couple of points. That's a load of excess comb. Are the bee spaces right? Something doesn't quite look right. Wish I was closer to come and help you out. Your heart is in the right place but you need some help. Queen cells? Are you sure? If so then at what stage were they? Need a bit more info before I can keep advice to the minimum. I really really suggest you accept an offer of help from someone 'who knows!'
Just had another look at the photo. Looks like sealed queen cell there. In which case you may have already lost your queen. In which case I hope you have another queen cell in there! Please get some help!
E

 

[sbisme]

enrico you can see a queen cell almost center of the pic and it looks almost capped if it's not already

 

[hedgehog66]

jay

ive pm'd you with my phone number
please call me