Is there anything I can do to help them...

[Finman]

.
If you have a coffee cup size colony and even a queen which lays, it takes 5 years to get yield from that hive. Heh heh , hobby level! That unhappy beginner and you arrange him more into a piss.

One boy come to buy " an egg transfer needle".
- what are you going to do with that, asked the suplier.
- I am going to move an egg, rear a queen and I start beekeeping.


Last week one guy was going to start beekeeping. He was going to bye 10 bees and a queen.

 

[merylvingien]

Hey Finman, Sam knows the score, the queen is finished but it is in his nature to try AND to learn by his own mistakes. You cant blame anyone for trying even if they know the chances of success are slim.

7 or 8 years ago i tried to set up my own business and for 3-4 years things were VERY difficult, i almost gave up several times. I was told on more than one occasion to move on and forget it.

Last year i bought myself a 50" plasma screen tv and all the trimmings with the surplus cash that was blowing about in the wind

So just occasionaly things dont work out how you think they will...

 

[RoseCottage]

Finman,
I don't disagree with you in the main and I know that most likely you are right on this occasion...but think of this:

1. I am keen to learn the boundaries of beekeeping and this experience will help me in that. I will learn a lot from it. Today we caught a queen and caged her. I have never be close to that before. Today I met a genuinely feisty hive and have never actually experienced that either so I am pleased. Also If the colony fails I will learn a little about queens that stop laying and that will hopefully be valuable.

2. I have also met two really generous spirited local beekeepers who have supported us and provided a valuable lifeline without accepting anything in return. That is also an extremely valuable thing and a lesson too.

3. We all had fun today with some bees (admittedly, I was stung on my backside which is also a new experience!).

4. Tomorrow I will be caging and introducing my queen to the new colony and will learn a lot from that too.

It is likely that the queen has for some reason stopped laying and it is also likely that this little project will fail to succeed. However, nothing is certain and it is only by trying that I can have any hope of turning the situation around. No-one has been coerced into taking part and therefore an attempt is all to the good.

If we are unlucky and lose the queen I may now have a fallback position with these bees. The new additions will help buy me time until my other colony are strong enough to offer a test frame to create a new queen.

As a very happy beginner and hobbyist I will enjoy the journey. I will take many years to gain a solid skillset based on personal experience and judicious learning from people like yourself, Rab, PolyHive, and many others. This is what my beekeeping journey is about, not just honey production and sales (hence my desire to keep at a small number of hives).

Today is a new page in the diary of my beekeeping life. It is only a very small step but I have moved forward and the coming days will take me further.

I and Linn are extremely grateful for the kindness bestowed upon us by Paul (merylvingien) and Mike (Mike a) who embody the very best aspects of this forum.

Finman, I will continue to value and listen to your words of wisdom and hopefully I will not always be such a strange pupil who makes unusual or unwise decisions.

But today has been a good day for the Rose Cottage bees.

All the best,
Sam

 

[RoseCottage]

So the new bees are in position in the new agreed location in the farmers field. 20 feet away from 30 acres of OSR.

They are in the Nuc (temporarily standing on a WBC floor) that I have borrowed from Paul, strapped down with Mike's straps, and fighting for dominance between themselves.

In the morning we will be taking a large amount of vanilla and sugar syrup to spray over them and also our queen and remaining bees to introduce. The queen will be caged and will be suspended in a central seam of the nuc. They will not be able to get to her for a few days and we will prep some fondant in the cage too. We will check in three days time to see whether they have stopped balling the queen and then will break off the little tag that prevents them from getting to the fondant.

When I opened the nuc this afternoon they fairly exploded out and made me start until that is I realised that they were not interested in me at all just in getting down to some heat moderation.

Onwards and upwards. We had planned to keep the nuc in the Summerhouse but with the numbers in the nuc now I think that there is little need to do this. Many, many thanks for the generosity.

Sam and Linn

 

[merylvingien]

Keep us posted Sam!

 

[Mike a]

Just a light misting at the most Sam, the vanilla is optional and should not be over powering just enough to distract them so one drop should be fine in a small amount of syrup. I would open the nuc and just gently mist the bees once or twice after 20-30 seconds of them being opened and putting the queen cage in between the frames, no need to pull out each frame to mist them all.

 

[Silly Bee]

Sam I would do the same and try anything feasable. I hate squishing anything (except spots) so can understand your resistance to killing off the queen, If you are lucky and they survive you will be chuffed, at the end of the day if they dont make it then its sad (lost a small colony this spring) but at least you tried.

 

[Poly Hive]

Thank you RoseCottage.

PH

 

[RoseCottage]

Poly,
Just wanting to recognise the reality,
All the best,
Sam

 

[Baggyone]

Reading this is very interesting on how to try to get a very small colony to get going again. If it can of course.

For further discussion, had the situation been this small dwindling colony and a very strong 8 frame of brood affair with plenty of flying bees in the same apiary. Would it have been possible to simply swap the hive positions? The flyers boosting the smaller colony with some of them (if hooper is right) reverting to an earlier state. Once it seemed that the queen is laying again then a frame of brood from the stronger hive could be introduced to start getting some balance in the hive again. The stronger hive should be now getting new forergers every day now.

This is of course ignoring any requirment of honey yields and is strictly on the basis of discussion.

 

[RoseCottage]

Baggyone,
That's an interesting idea...would the foragers be accepted or would there be a bloodbath?
Today we combined nurse bees and a few foragers, I assume, from 2 different colonies. No newspaper separation just lots of sugar syrup spray.

I sneaked a p eak earlier at the entrance and found some dead bodies. Not too many...we'll see tomorrow.

I have more bees to introduce tomorrow so more spray then.

Sam

 

[oliver90owner]

If you throw together several different sources of bees at the same time they are so befuddled that they don't fight. I've never done it as I have never had as many colonies as I have now.

Swapping places is effectively done every time you do a complete A/S.

Bees are almost always accepted for entry if they are bearing goodies (pollen or nectar). Might take a bit longer for first entry (time for bribing the guards), but is a well documented method of balancing stocks.

Regards, RAB

 

[RoseCottage]

Did a quick inspection and found a few queen cups, hopefully with the queen these will be torn down. Also swapped out the frames without stores or brood and added 3 frames of stores (this may be one too many).

Put our queen in the cage today and repainted her (including her feet!!!). Added the last of the bees from the original colony too. There were just a handful of dead bees this morning and about 10 more tonight.

Hopefully all will be well. The bees were all pussycats today no trouble at all.

We will look in on them in a couple of days to see if the queen is ok and then snap the block from the fondant cover.

Once again huge thanks to Paul and Mike,

Sam and Linn

 

[merylvingien]

Just need to wait and see what the story is now then Sam.

The bees were nice today eh? Thats becuase they are no longer minions of that demon thing that we painted!
We would have been better off painting her with war paint.

I am convinced she is Lucifer in a bee body.

 

[Mike a]

Hope you left that national empty drawn frame in Sam?
If not the queen will need it to lay in once she is released as you ideally don't want her laying in the commercial frames as you can't use them in your hive. Once the commercial frames are mostly empty of brood hopefully before you inspect again then exchange them for your frames.

Check the cage in a couple of days and once your happy they are calmly walking over it and or feeding the queen then break off the tab so they can get in to eat away the fondant and release the queen and then leave them alone for about 10 days before you inspect again and look closely for eggs & larvae.

At some point soon after your queen is released and hopefully laying you will need to swap them out of the nuc and in to your hive to give them more space.

 

[oliver90owner]

then leave them alone for about 10 days

I would recommend a peep (only to check she has been released) as the fondant can be hardened and she is left in the cage too long. Nothing more than that though.

Regards, RAB

 

[RoseCottage]

Sad update...the fat lady may be clearing her throat...

Hi I have an update...

We moved our surviving colony to the same location as the 'new colony' a couple of days ago. They are greedily bringing in pollen. So this is good news, we believe that this colony will now survive and hopefully build up strongly (especially in the warm weather).

Also the new 'colony' has been extremely busy, docile and pollen greedy. all good news or so we thought.

We went to the new apiary today to check on the caged queen to see whether the bees had stopped balling her.

She's dead in her cage. Very disappointing and we don't know why she died. There is no obvious reason why she died...no sign of injury...well there is a small white blob that could be fondant near her rear end.

Today the bees were a lot more tetchy and agitated. On one of the frames of brood there are 2-3 empty queen cups.

Our new plan is to allow our surviving colony to grow for a week or so and try to add a frame with eggs into the nuc. We are hoping being at the rape will be enough to maintain the population alive long enough for us to be able to provide a frame and have a new queen mated.

What do you think?

Sam and Linn

 

[RoseCottage]

Ouch!!! OOOUUUCcchhhh!!!

So since the queen died the new colony have been getting progressively more aggressive I think.

I have been away celebrating our first wedding anniversary - we came home today and I went to see the girls. I had my jacket/veil on, jeans, and got out my car 20feet from them. As soon as I did I was attacked by 20-30 bees and quickly took a sting to my inner thigh (shire matter of seconds). I retreated to the car and drove 150 feet away. All seemed ok so I got out and took my veil off to put It in the boot. Out of nowhere 6 bees appeared and went for my face and neck. 3 got caught in my hair and they stung me on my head. One at the back, two just above my hairline. I had to use my jacket as a swinging wean as I printed away! I couldn't get in the car as more bees had entered it via the door.

Eventually I got far enough away and killed the remaining bees. One just missed getting me in the throat.

Hmmm. Very poor behaviour from the girls. Very poor.

I have taken an extremely powerful antihistamine (prescribed last week by our Dr for my.daughter's sun burn). I am expecting to look like the elephant man.

I went back a little later in full battle armour:
Thick jumper and jacket and veil
Jeans, Wellington boots and white trousers.
Two pairs of gauntlets.

They went for me again but I stood my ground. I know now that I should be ok with full battle armour should I need to be.

Sam

 

[Mike a]

Hi Sam
It seems they like to sting you a lot recently Sounds like you may need to get a frame of eggs quickly and put it in so they can raise a new queen and calm them down.

PS. Can I state for the record the followers were probably from Paul's Lucifer colony.

 

[merylvingien]

Just part of the norm for me

Sam, you havent seen an aggressive colony yet, the ones you encountered today were just playing.

As Mike says, you need to get a frame of eggs from some nice calm bees and let them sort things out. It will all work out in the end, and you have learnt a important lesson and will never treat insects as pets as some keepers seem to do.

I did an extraction today in the cavity of a store shed, the nicest bees you could come across, not once did they try and sting me, the fella that was with me took one to the neck, but he will live.
I only managed a couple of photos, but will post them tomorrow.
The mini vac is a total success.