Normal Behaviour or Not

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Many thanks for all your replies - most helpful. I’ll check everything out and let you all know. I’m hopeful the Queen is still there but she won’t be in the super. I cleared it all out and put the frames with the honey back in and the qe on the brood box. Thanks again

just make sure, if they are bringing in nectar, that they have plenty of space. A rough guide is, if the super is full of bees (not honey) it's time to add another super

 

[enrico]

just make sure, if they are bringing in nectar, that they have plenty of space. A rough guide is, if the super is full of bees (not honey) it's time to add another super

With frames

 

[Stephen Matthew]

Ok thanks for that. They’re a bit calmer today than yesterday- they’re in the shade - but they’re not bringing in any pollen. Is that normal? Mind you my new colony isn’t bringing in any either

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

if it's like in my area, they are concentrating on piling in the nectar

 

[Stephen Matthew]

That helps Stephen, thanks. The empty super is why they built loads of wild comb. If there is more than a beespace anywhere then bees will fill it with comb. A lesson well learnt. You need to do a couple of things now. Go through your bees gently and calmly four days after you wen through them last time. First of all go through the super that is on top of the queen excluder. Dont look for the queen but look for eggs. If you find any then you know the queen is up there. You have two choices, if you want to give the bees more room then put that super UNDER your brood box and put a fresh super ontop of the queen excluder. Or, if you do not want the faff of brood and a half then find the queen and pop her in the brood box under the queen excluder. If there are no eggs then take off the super and check the brood box again looking for eggs but keeping an eye open for emergency queen cells. If there are eggs then you have the queen in the brood box and all is OK. If you cant find eggs anywhere then you need to remove all but two of the queen cells. It means you have most likely lost your queen. I think the latter scenario is highly unlikely so dont despair.
Look at the blog page on this site and put my avatar name in the filter. There are some pages on there that will give you hints about looking after your bees as a newbee. Take heart, all is not lost and the bees will do everything they can to rectify your mistakes
Let us know how it goes

Did you see my post about them not bringing pollen in? Is this significant do you think? I’ll inspect them tomorrow.

 

[Antipodes]

Did you see my post about them not bringing pollen in? Is this significant do you think? I’ll inspect them tomorrow.

Research shows that pollen gathering/not gathering is influenced mostly by brood and what pollen stores the colony has.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Did you see my post about them not bringing pollen in? Is this significant do you think?

not at all - bees bringing in pollen (or not) has no real indication as to their queenright (or not) state, as I said, they sometimes prioritise and if they are taking advantage of a flow will mainly concentrate on nectar.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Research shows that pollen gathering/not gathering is influenced mostly by brood and what pollen stores the colony has stored.

Aye and most colony’s have ample pollen this time of year I’ve been removing pollen frames for storage as @jenkinsbrynmair said they are possible on a good flow

 

[Antipodes]

Yep, for sure mate as per the first link below....where it was found they work to reach a kind of homeostatic position around pollen. Of course they don't waste too much time collecting pollen if they don't need it.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00176173
Of course there is no hard and fast rule about pollen gathering, but generally the study results seem to confirm my personal field observations.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.1972.11099693

 

[enrico]

Depends if the main so

Did you see my post about them not bringing pollen in? Is this significant do you think? I’ll inspect them tomorrow.

Trying to get nectar out of some flowers without getting pollen on them must be quite a task. They will always have stores of pollen. They don't get the brood and then go looking for the pollen so to speak. I never take it as much of a sign of anything other than they are doing what bees do! Sorry I can't be more specific

 

[Stephen Matthew]

Depends if the main so

Trying to get nectar out of some flowers without getting pollen on them must be quite a task. They will always have stores of pollen. They don't get the brood and then go looking for the pollen so to speak. I never take it as much of a sign of anything other than they are doing what bees do! Sorry I can't be more specific

That’s helpful. Which blog was it you suggested in an earlier post for Newbies?

 

[enrico]

That’s helpful. Which blog was it you suggested in an earlier post for Newbies?

Go onto the blog page on this site and in the filters put Enrico. You may have read some of them elsewhere.

 

[Stephen Matthew]

Go onto the blog page on this site and in the filters put Enrico. You may have read some of them elsewhere.

Yes I’ve done that. I just wondered which one you were referring to.

 

[enrico]

Yes I’ve done that. I just wondered which one you were referring to.

Any of them, there is a series on there for second year beekeepers that was written for the bbka mag.