nosema and supers opinions and advice please

[victorg]

Hello, here is the situation
1st hive started from nuc last june, they had filled a super by the end of summer (mostly syrup) so the bee inspector advised just remove the queen excluder and leave it on over winter.

So it was sunny (amazing) last week so I went to have a peek and there are the signs of a nosema infection, not severe but there.
Opened up the hive and my god they are doing well, building up nicely, eggs and brood, I didnt stop to loook for te queen as I had seen the eggs, oh, an no queen cells being built.
However I have some questions.

1) will they finish off the stores in the super between now and the nectar flow? obviously Id prefer to harvest honey rather than syrup.will they will replace the syrup in the supers with honey?

2) I presume I just check to see the queen is in the brood box and pop the excluder on?

3) Will the fumadil B + vitafeed+ sugar syrup mix interfere with them eating the stores in the supers?

I have a spare brood box and supers handy, if I make increase will I massively affect my first years honey harvest?

Diolch, hwyl.

victor

 

[oliver90owner]

Welcome to the forum.

No queen cells? Are you in the UK?

1) Who can tell. Size, amount, time to flow not known. They will not 'replace' it unless they eat it all, first. They will just add to it as soon as conditions are favourable.

2) It is (usually) better that the queen is below the excluder.

3) while taking that they will not be taking the equivalent amount of stores.

Increas will affect honey crop. Rather depends on your main flow, and when you would wish to increase. Would also depend on the strength of the colony too, possibly.

You dont say what brood you have, the space in it or any useful information.

You might get the super emptied into the brood by placing it below the brood nest (without a super above), but that might congest the brood area and limit build-up. Can't tell from here what to do.

Regards, RAB

 

[victorg]

thanks Rab, yes, in wales and no queen cells yet,
The main flow is mid july to end august, but the first trees to flower (for bees) here will be end of march. Im feeling that I want to avoid making increase until next year just so's I can have a nice crop.
The brood is a sigle brood box, there is 2 frames currently unfuilled, they didnt get round to filling these last year so Iwas going to move them in a bit this year, the rest have a nice crescent of eggs, brood and stores on each, but looks like its growing rapidly,
I guess im feeling that the best plan of action would be just put the excluder on and the fumadil b feeder and watch over the next month run up to nectar flow to see how its going, i suppose I can always extract it and then bin it then put the super back on?

 

[Poly Hive]

So you have a brood box, with some brood in it, and a super full of stores of some sort. and no queen cells though why you would even think to have them yet I ain't a clue.

You want the bees to use up the super contents. Clear the bees out of it with an escape board, if they dinna shift check for brood up there.

Having cleared it off, when your brood box is up to say 7 or 8 frames of brood, which is to say they are building up fast, put the super under the brood with an excluder between them and bruise the cappings in the super that is. In a week or so it will be pretty much cleaned out.

PH

 

[victorg]

nice.

 

[RoofTops]

You might have an opportunity to make increase if they start making queen cells early in the year. If you do an artifical swarm just keep the new queen and don't unite the two boxes. The old queen will lay strongly in the new box and the original colony will be quickly back up to strength.

I wouldn't look inside a hive before a warm day in mid to late March. Despite the sun the air temperatures are far to low at the moment and the risk of chilling the brood is very high.

 

[grizzly]

Noswaith da Victor

I made increase last year, and it did not affect my honey harvest, however the rain did !!!.
But i did have Carnis at the time, not sure what bees you have there.

 

[VEG]

Exactly what signs of nosema did you see

 

[mbc]

If your worried about contaminating your honey with syrup you could allwaya take the super off and let the bees rob it out
Pob hwyl
mbc

 

[victorg]

Exactly what signs of nosema did you see

fair bit of **** on the outside of the hive

 

[VEG]

Was this after a period of cold or rain?
As you can get marks on the outside of the hive if they havent been able to get out, it doesnt mean they have nosema. Only one way to find out is with a microscope.

Also can you update your profile to say where you are from and how many colonies you have, as it helps us to answer.

 

[victorg]

interesting, would you advise holding off on the fumadil b for a couple of weeks to see how it pans out? I was uncertain about the nosema as it never looked as severe as that.

oh, and profile done.

 

[VEG]

I would get some bees tested for nosema before treating. It could be just a case that they have been kept in the hive due to poor weather for a bit, then when its ok they all go to the loo and it looks a mess.

 

[victorg]

lovely, good advice, from all, many thanks