No honey in the brood box

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Perry

New Bee
Joined
May 9, 2011
Messages
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Location
Twickenham
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
1
I was away for two weeks and left three supers on the brood box. The first was full. When I returned over the weekend I found the top two supers each about half full of capped frames. So I removed the capped frames and extracted the honey. I combined and left the partially full and uncapped frames into one super. Here is the interesting bit. The first super is no longer full, the centre frames have lots of empty cells. Ther are still a lot of bees. The frames in the brood box have lots of capped brood cells but no stores at all. What are the implications of this? When can I start treating for varroa? Will the girls lay down some stores in the brood frames? Or transfer honey from the first super? Confusing...
 
Are you saying that two frames have been part used since the weekend? Nothing unusual in that. It just means they have brood to feed and not enough coming in.

Your description indicates the brood box is stuffed full of brood? The possible implication is that your strain of bee may not be the best choice. Italian origin, by any chance?

Varroa treatment is another matter. Depends on how you wish to proceed; remove honey and feed to prevent starvation, treat later, not need treating. I would recommend folowing the manufactures's instructions, as a good course of action.

Laying down stores means collecting more than subsistence requirements. Whether that is likely is a local matter, unless you intend feeding them, in which case they will if you supply enough.
 
sounds like you should be aiming for overwintering on Brood and a half perhaps with aim of either going 14x12 or double brood next season. i presume these bees are from a 2011 nuc?

you need to start feeding and treating (if necessary depending upon count)
 
you need to start feeding and treating (if necessary depending upon count)

With Apiguard or Apilifevar. Count unimportant. Just do it or regret at your leisure!! This is THE time of year for it to done followed by Oxalic trickle around Xmas.
 
With Apiguard or Apilifevar. Count unimportant. Just do it or regret at your leisure!! This is THE time of year for it to done followed by Oxalic trickle around Xmas.

Possibly, possibly not, please try not to be so dogmatic, not everyone follows the same religion and some people don't treat and are still successful.

Chris
 
:iagree:
Me too
My count with apilife is ten mites between three hives over two weeks.
I was beginning to worry the stuff wasn't working but I talked to a chap who keeps four colonies in the woods next to me and he reported zilch counts too, but with apiguard, so I have stopped treating after the two weeks.
 
Ditto - stopped the apilife var on one after two weeks (to encourage laying), and expecting near zero on the other two after 3rd week - I dont think I'll be continuing them
 
Me too. I'm not going to be using either of those treatments. Nor oxalic acid trickle around xmas, if possible.

A bit too much like being told to only use the 'creamed rice' winter feed.

There are nearly always alternatives.

RAB
 
This is interesting as this is my first year. Myself and another newby put in Apiguard a week ago. We checked the boards yesterday on two hives and counted around 20 mites on each. We discussed whether to carry on with a second dose next week. Any advice would be appreciated.

Michael
 
I guess this sparked an Apiguard treatment discussion. Question for you all - if I start the treatment now does it mean I cannot harvest the two supers that are there? And if I harvest the supers and there is no honey in the brood box does it mean that my girls will go hungry?
 
Remove supers....extract honey....give wet supers back for 24 hours for them to clean.....treat and feed at same time.....quickly as you are running out of treatment time!
 

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