Mixed batch - first inspections today

thebhoy · Apr 5, 2015

Checked my five hives today....first check this year and mixed bag....

All colonies are way behind last year at this time.

Small colony was a 'mating nuc' had plenty of pollen going in any days the sun was out (in my garden so see what happens every day)...was buzzing and busy..eggs. brood etc...so looks ok

Weakest colony going into Winter was a late swarm and was in a nuc, had low stores from the outset and I gave it some fondant in January....didn't think it would make it...was busy, plenty of pollen going in and good brood pattern albeit still tight over three frames, added a super frame of stores...looks ok

3rd..was a very strong one going into Winter....all looked ok, BIAS etc so ok
4th colony again ok

5th and last was my biggest going into Winter, on approaching I seen a drone lying on landing board, upside down but alive....opened hive to find loads of drones and all drone brood capped /uncapped /emerging....either lost the queen and have laying worker(S) or she turned drone layer. Still have a good few workers but these will be running down now. They have set up QC's but no good

As I say .....mixed bag.

Will now look to combine 1st and 5th colonies.... move Q- hive off it's stand, replace with Q+ colony and shake the Q- bees onto a QE over a newspaper and BB........

clv101 · Apr 5, 2015

For the 5th one, if the brood pattern is good, and the eggs are placed singularly at the bottom of the cells you can rule out laying workers. It could have been a late supersedure with the queen unable to mate? I had one colony like that this spring, in the super I left them with over winter, one frame happened to be drone foundation - that one was laid wall to wall, the other frames in the super on regular foundation hadn't been. Quite a lot of drone brood in the brood box too.

I found the new unmarked queen, had a good look for a 2nd and replaced her with one of last year's spare queens overwintered in a mating nuc.

MuswellMetro · Apr 5, 2015

thebhoy said:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Will now look to combine 1st and 5th colonies.... move Q- hive off it's stand, replace with Q+ colony and shake the Q- bees onto a QE over a newspaper and BB........

ok with moving the 1st to the 5th stand but would let it settle and reduce the entrance, mov the 5th away and a couple of hours later then shake the 5th onto a sheet some way away and let the forgers return, just in case you have a false queen DLW that can get through Qex,

thebhoy · Apr 5, 2015

Thanks for the tips folks.

enrico · Apr 5, 2015

I made my first brief check and found a drone laying queen. Found the queen eventually and killed her, not that much brood so combined them with another hive. She was a late queen last year so I had a feeling she may not have got mated.
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thebhoy · Apr 8, 2015

Combined the colonies today....removed Q- / Drone laying queen/ laying workers hive from stand and replaced with Q+ colony, as it was warm the bees were flying and plenty of pollen going in with bees from original colony.
Went through Q- hive frame by frame, still was a good size colony, knocking bees onto upturned lid one by one (frame by frame

) trying to see if there was a queen present...couldn't see one.

As all bees were flyers rather than nurse bees they started returning back to original hive location.
Once all frames were clear of bees and hive shook out I closed it down leaving frames of brood inside....all drone, these should die off and I will clean out at weekend.

Hopefully all will work out ok and the queen will not be killed.....there was no fighting at all between the colonies but will have to see all is well at weekend.