is it supersedure?

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RogerJ

New Bee
Joined
Mar 3, 2015
Messages
68
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5
Location
Herefordshire
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
5
I've got a hive (which had previously swarmed) that can't seem to make up it's mind what it wants to do! As a timeline (from inspections):

11 June No eggs or brood
17 June Eggs and brood (this was 36 days after a "failed" AS so presumably a Q had come into lay)
22 June Brood (couldn't categorically say if there were eggs)
30 June As above
10 July No brood or eggs (Hive has plenty of room and has stores); added a test frame (so did new queen fail or decide to go walk about sometime between 17 and 22 June?)
12 July No change - no evidence of attempting to make QC on test frame
15 July As above
20 July Appears to be BIAS on two frames - so it seems as though there is a queen present. But on a frame next to these two there are four charged unsealed QCs.

So what to do? Leave alone or remove?

Thanks.
 
Lot of guessing from me here but let's try and help.

First, with respect, you know you are not great at spotting eggs so your observations of brood come with a lag.

Second, there was a June gap with all that rain the last week of June first week of July.

Third, I am not quite sure what happened in a "failed AS".

But a guess that fits the facts is they raised a new emergency Q who laid a bit then they took a brood break. Now she is back in lay but they are not happy with her.

Personally, I would leave well alone but might consider a mite treatment at some (broodless) point. ADD I might knock the cells back to two but only "might".
 
Thanks for the comments. The "failed" AS was doing the AS but too late to stop it swarming so the hive was Q- for a while - I didn't want to make the post too long with all the gory details of my incompetence!!
 
Thanks for the comments. The "failed" AS was doing the AS but too late to stop it swarming so the hive was Q- for a while - I didn't want to make the post too long with all the gory details of my incompetence!!

Losing a swarm is not incompetence; it happens. A Pagden AS has a success of no better than 50%. AS-ing gets you ahead of the game (and me this year, for various reasons...). But the burden of my question is whether the current Q was raised from a swarm cell or an emergency cell. Presumably the former which dents my theory a bit. But I really doubt they are swarming again so I'd tend to leave alone for a while.
 
11 June No eggs or brood
17 June Eggs and brood (this was 36 days after a "failed" AS so presumably a Q had come into lay)
22 June Brood (couldn't categorically say if there were eggs)
30 June As above
10 July No brood or eggs (Hive has plenty of room and has stores); added a test frame (so did new queen fail or decide to go walk about sometime between 17 and 22 June?)
12 July No change - no evidence of attempting to make QC on test frame
15 July As above
20 July Appears to be BIAS on two frames - so it seems as though there is a queen present. But on a frame next to these two there are four charged unsealed QCs.

So what to do? Leave alone or remove?

Thanks.

I would have left them alone after the June 17th inspection.

My observation is that there is far too much of a focus on swarm prevention and regular, in depth, hive inspections.

Every time you go through a hive you are risking injury to the queen and disrupting their normal activity.

If you are not placing your frames back in the exact order and orientation they are expending energy reorganizing the colony back the way they want it instead of expending it putting away surplus honey.

You can tip a box up and look through the bottom to tell if there is brood present, queen cells etc. It takes 30 seconds and isn't as disruptive.

You can also get a borescope (they plug into your smart phone) or inspection mirror to check cells for eggs/open brood without disturbing the colony much.
 
Hi Roger,
I would give up on that genetics!
 
I feel your pain!

I've got one that has had 3 AS carried out and still went on to make further swarm cells, finally swarming last week - first thing in the morning into next door's conifer, around 30ft up. I left them too it as there was no way I could get up to it. Oh and one of the splits ended up with laying workers, presumably due to the long periods without brood.

This strain will be getting eliminated when I combine in a few weeks time. They're a real pain.
 

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