No sense of timing.

[Beagle23]

It's been a pretty hopeless beekeeping year.
I went down to one colony after losing one over the winter, but I decided to keep going with the one remaining colony hoping good luck would avert disaster. How wrong I was.

- My first inspection in early March revealed that the queen was no longer laying, I immediately sourced a new queen and two hours before arriving home with her the entire colony absconded.
- With only a couple of hundred stragglers left in the hive I have the new queen to a local beekeeper in exchange for the promise of a captured swarm (a promise not delivered upon I should add)
- So with no bees, I contacted another local beekeeper who was wonderfully helpful and set me up with a package for a good price. The bees were successfully introduced to the hive and in no time the queen was laying well and stores rapidly accumulated. In mid August they swarmed. I'd seen one QC but was sure it was too late in the year for them to go so it came as a bit of a shock.
- Despite this setback the new new queen mated successfully and started laying and then today after leaving them to it for a month I opened up the hive and found that it was heaving with brood, filling frames up into the third super (there's no queen excluder in place - I've never used on and never had this problem before), and there are hundreds/thousands of drones.
- There are no unhatched drones so that's something, no more hungry mouths from that source. But given the prolific egg laying and the very late presence of so many new drones I'm curious as to what's going on. If I was seeing such a pattern in April I'd think it unremarkable if not for the sheer quantity of brood.
- Stores are very low and I'm probably going to need to feed them as soon as the Ivy flow stops.

Has anyone encountered a similar problem? Any idea what may have caused it?

Thanks

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

how much worker brood?

 

[Beagle23]

how much worker brood?

It's all worker brood now, a full national brood box and about 18 full super frames. The last of the drones have just finished hatching.

 

[The Poot]

It's all worker brood now, a full national brood box and about 18 full super frames. The last of the drones have just finished hatching.

Do you have enough workers to split the colony (as you have so much brood), source another laying queen and go into Winter with two again? And feed them both regardless of how much ivy there is?

 

[Beagle23]

Do you have enough workers to split the colony (as you have so much brood), source another laying queen and go into Winter with two again? And feed them both regardless of how much ivy there is?

Easily enough brood for a split, that's a great idea, thanks

 

[The Poot]

Easily enough brood for a split, that's a great idea, thanks

But do you have enough workers to look after / keep warm the brood, if split?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The wise thing to do would be to not fiddle any further. A good strong colony going into winter is far better than two mediocre.
The drones will soon be 'dealt with' then the bees will hunker down and prepare for winter. Just treat, feed and leave them to it. Early next season is the time to plan splitting the colony.

 

[Beagle23]

Thanks for the replies.

No one fancy a stab at why the new queen would have swarmed so late and the prolific laying of her daughter?

 

[Kaz]

In my limited experience, bees swarm when they swarm. I've had one go in early September. Just be thankful that the new queen mated successfully and is laying so well?