No honey - again!

[Sadders]

I'm not sure what I am doing wrong as I've had bees for about 6 years and never had much of a harvest.

I have 1 colony in a 14x12 box. This year I AS'd them so now have 2, a good strong one with the original queen (although she was superseded after AS) and a weak colony with the new queen.

The strong colony as I say was made from the old queen and 2 frames of brood and it now fills the BB. They have put some uncapped stores in the super and there are plenty of bees in there but no proper stores. This is how its been season after season.

They are lovely calm bees, just not very productive.

Should I re-queen next season or is there anything else to try?

 

[protheroe]

i had a couple of hives that just didnt take off this year and i requeened them.if they dont expand rapidly during a flow then theres something not right.if i was you i would give new queens from a decent source ready for next year.

 

[oliver90owner]

Always a problem when they get into swarm mode. You would have been better advised to unite, once the young queen was proven, or even to have requeened at the point of the A/S. Large colonies make surplus, small ones just don't have the surplus foragers. It has often been repeated onthe forum; simple beeeeping facts of life.

 

[enrico]

It is important that you get to know what is going to produce the honey in your area and when. Trees are the common crop if you have no monoculture farming. Try hard to get your hives strong for when this flow is on even if it means combining two hives to get the strength up! This year was good for many beekeepers as they came out of winter with strong hives, that meant that spring flows had more bees on them, very strong hives for summer flows and hence loads of honey, but you did an AS probably at the crucial time. Sometimes that is just what has to be done to prevent swarming so some years you will dip out totally but one year it will all come right! I have been known to cut out queen cells to keep a strong hive that wanted to swarm just as I knew a flow was about to start. When in full flow often the swarming instinct seems to come second!
Keep at it. One day.......
E

 

[thorn]

I started out with a 14x12 after a year following this forum, and in particular a number of threads advising that standard national brood boxes were too small for the modern bee.
My first colony was swarmy by nature. They never filled the box before leaving, hotly followed by several casts, despite all my efforts to take down queen cells, and AS. As a result, they never completely filled the brood box, and used it for stores rather than going up into the super. By contrast, a newer colony in a standard brood box has provided three supers of honey, and the AS from there has also filled a super. And never a swarm from that bloodline, so it's not wholly down to my poor beekeeping.
I'm beginning to have my doubts about the wisdom of having a larger brood box. However, I'll persevere with it for another year. I've just replaced the queen with a buckfast queen, in the hope of changing the smarmy gene, filling the box and getting some honey from them. The old queen has gone into a standard brood box, and I'll make a decision on the future of her and her successors when I find out whether the swarming continues.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I started out with a 14x12 after a year following this forum, and in particular a number of threads advising that standard national brood boxes were too small for the modern bee.
My first colony was swarmy by nature. They never filled the box before leaving, hotly followed by several casts, despite all my efforts to take down queen cells, and AS. As a result, they never completely filled the brood box, and used it for stores rather than going up into the super. By contrast, a newer colony in a standard brood box has provided three supers of honey, and the AS from there has also filled a super. And never a swarm from that bloodline, so it's not wholly down to my poor beekeeping.
I'm beginning to have my doubts about the wisdom of having a larger brood box. However, I'll persevere with it for another year. I've just replaced the queen with a buckfast queen, in the hope of changing the smarmy gene, filling the box and getting some honey from them. The old queen has gone into a standard brood box, and I'll make a decision on the future of her and her successors when I find out whether the swarming continues.

I Use 14 x 12 and have hives which vary significantly in productivity. No1 is very productive, no2 much less so but it is the original queen after an AS, no3 is productive but not as good as no1, no4 struggled after the AS from no2 and became queenless until I united it somewhat late with a queen in a very small colony whereupon she started laying up a lot of eggs and they will go into winter as a reasonably strong hive. No 5 and no6 are both incoming swarms that have now filled the brood boxes and again should be ok to overwinter.
A lot will depend on the outcome of the varroa treatment that went on all hives today.

 

[Sadders]

Am I right in thinking that daughter queens will have the same temperament as their mother queen and their colonies will be similar in nature? Or do they pick up attributes from the colonies their drone father came from?

I think I may re-queen my strongest (and least productive hive) come spring.

 

[mbc]

Always a problem when they get into swarm mode. You would have been better advised to unite, once the young queen was proven, or even to have requeened at the point of the A/S. Large colonies make surplus, small ones just don't have the surplus foragers. It has often been repeated onthe forum; simple beeeeping facts of life.

Indeed, lots of bees, queenright, with momentum going forward during anything of a flow almost always gather a surplus. One of the downsides of the larger brood box is that they can use all their oomph filling that if they've been split.

Am I right in thinking that daughter queens will have the same temperament as their mother queen and their colonies will be similar in nature? Or do they pick up attributes from the colonies their drone father came from?

I always think a strong matriarchal line holds sway to a greater extent in passing on attributes, but of course the drones will also have some influence.

 

[REDWOOD]

I had a colony that was useless, although it was a big it did nothing, for some reason the foragers where lazy buggers and I could never work it out until I read Brother Adam's book, a simple requeen made all the difference

 

[richardbees]

Sadders

When you do the AS procedure, do you switch the QC hive to the other side of the parent hive after a week, then again back to the other side a week later? With a 14x12 you need to capture all the flying bees from old brood to produce surplus.

I'm also London and it's been my best year ever as the hot July temps coincided with all my local street Lime trees flowering.

richard

 

[Hawklord]

I too struggled to get a crop in the first few years. I found supering on 5-6 seams of bees slowed the expansion on to more brood frames but got bees into the super quicker.