problem-no brood and honey blocked

[burren]

2nd may- 4 1/2 frames of brood, stores on 4 frames- drone cells capped/lots of pollen coming in
11th may- 4 1/2 frames of brood, eggs seen.
22nd may (delayed inspection) q seen, 4 patchy sealed brood, no eggs, no larvae, had pollen and stores. thought she might be off lay, gave pint or so of syrup that was in car ( week old).
28th may- inspected, q seen, all frames full of nectar and pollen, all of them bar end two drawn ones. no eggs/larvae/brood at all. No sign of disease or mite problem. 5 uncharged play cups, nothing else.
Today i think i need to put brood box of new frames on top or underneath? present one. Most of the stores are unsealed so cant scratch. Why have they taken in so much and why was she "off" lay They dont seem to be wanting to replace her and I am getting worried re lack of brood. Should I also add a frame of brood from another hive and put in the middle of present honey/pollen/nectar filled frames? thanks
ps weather has only been hot here for about six days. must be a flow as 1 weak pint wouldnt be filling the frames, would it? Thought they should use it straight away.

 

[Polyanwood]

Is it not time to put another super on?

 

[burren]

no I dont think, no brood, just mostly uncapped stores, they had space for brood before they just filled it. I have to give her more room NOW, but i wonder if she will lay even with more room. They seem to think she is ok.

 

[Polyanwood]

There is a great nectar flow on in most places due to the sunny weather. It sounds like they are back filling the brood nest with nectar. If there is no super, that is what they will do. Then they will swarm if there is no room for her to lay. You could put them on double brood, but they aren't a huge colony, so I don't see the point. Once you put a super on they will move the nectar that is filling the brood nest upstairs so she has plenty of room to lay again.

 

[Bates]

How old is this queen she sounds like shes a dud? Maybe time to requeen.

 

[burren]

this will be her second year, she was going to go at the end of the summer. Have given them 2 frames of draw in the centre of brood box yesterday, and today will go and put a super on now. Funny thing is before this flow I was not ready to super on only 4 frames of brood. Cant see any reason for the slow down/ off lay?????

 

[Snail368]

I was told during my training that bees need a lot of space (empty cells) to store nectar so that they can evaporate/concentrate the nectar into honey (I know this is a simplified explanation as bee enzymes also play a role). Hence the bees need a lot of empty cells to dry the nectar/honey to the proper level, then it will be moved for long term storage and the cells it is stored in sealed.

It sounds like your bees need more room to do this. Hence the need for another super. Once this is done, brood laying will re-start.

Hope this helps

 

[MuswellMetro]

take out all the liquid stores, go 100 yds away and shake out all the liquid honey

repalce the empty frames back in the hive

if it is capped honey , remove frames and place drawn comb in their place

last resort is repalce a few frames with foundation but that can induce swarming as it takes time to draw and in the interim reduces further the laying space and storage

 

[buzzerB]

Queens off lay in May - is rape the reason

I was searching Forums because we are having the same problem in all our hives. It happened last year too and a lot of the local Bee Club members are saying the same thing so it looks like a trend BUT WHY??

Three of the hives effected have had supers on for 2/3 weeks and one is 20% full; these hives are on one & a half brood and are full of honey, mostly uncapped. Smaller hives also have the low brood counts.

As newbies it would be good to hear other peoples views. Is it down to rape [with or without neonicitinoids?] which is everywhere here, or the odd weather?

 

[burren]

thanks for the replies. I have also just added a frame of bias from another hive as eggs last seen on 11th may when she was on 4.5 frames on brood and when inspecting on 22nd done to patchy sealed brood no eggs/no larvae but enough stores and plenty of room. Queen has been since at every inspection.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

On 22nd you gave syrup (which you didn't need to do as there were stores in the hive) and on 28th there was still foundation in the hive. Therefore there is some space. 4 - 5 frames of brood is not much. If the queen is not laying I suspect that she needs replacing.

(Although I am in a different part of the world, my colonies have anything between 8 and 18(!) frames of brood depending on flavour of bee - except where the queen has gone for one reason or another).

 

[Rich0909]

Is it definitely the same queen - i.e. not a virgin from a missed supercedure cell now waiting to start laying?

Rich

 

[user 6228]

Place a bet each way

Add a super, with a couple of pre drawn frames as well as foundation only and a test brood frame.
if she's dud they supercede, if not they move the stores.

 

[burren]

yep thats what I have done. super on, test frame in and 2 drawn out frames. But my question is why when they had 4 frames of brood and enough stores and still space, that they didnt try to superse if she was not quite right. You see the weather was nt great then( has only been sunny here for a week) and I had to allowed her to be temp off lay due to that and we were told9assoc member) to just give a little syrup to help maybe perk her up to lay again( they had enough stores then but still had frames to lay into) Now I have found all the frames have nectar/pollen/sealed honey in them and no laying whatsoever. So I didnt give her too much, just a pint of 1:1. So will look again in 4 days and see what occurs. I think the weather is due to be mild!

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Some queen will just stop laying. They may start a week or two later and squeeze a few more eggs out. In this case they don't get superceded. Chances are, if this happens the queen will be gone soon enough but the colony will not be able to rear a replacement. I wonder if it might be worth removing her and allowing the colony to rear a new queen from the eggs that are in the frame.

 

[burren]

checked on 4th june - no new eggs,no q cells started on inserted frame on 29th. Queen(marked) seen walking around, no way near the brood frame though. Wondered if I should take her out then as I had managed to spot her, but didnt. bees up in super, some nectar in there from frame 3-7, dont know if that is new or being bought up as still lots in brood box.

borrowed 1 more bias from another hive and took one stores out in return.

If nothing drawn (or she starts laying again) in five days. I should help them get rid of her, as something is not right

 

[Stromnessbees]

neonic interference

I was searching Forums because we are having the same problem in all our hives. It happened last year too and a lot of the local Bee Club members are saying the same thing so it looks like a trend BUT WHY??

Three of the hives effected have had supers on for 2/3 weeks and one is 20% full; these hives are on one & a half brood and are full of honey, mostly uncapped. Smaller hives also have the low brood counts.

As newbies it would be good to hear other peoples views. Is it down to rape [with or without neonicitinoids?] which is everywhere here, or the odd weather?

You are right to ask questions.

It's not normal that breeding should stop so drastically during the OSR flowering period.

As most of the UK OSR is treated with systemic neonicotinoids we have to consider an effect from sublethal poisoning.

Neonicotinoids are neurotoxins, and as such they interfere with the internal communication system of the hive. The colony can't decide anymore whether it should rear brood or not.

If you have the opportunity to take your bees away from the OSR I would recommend you should do that, as well as extract all the honey to avoid a delayed poisoning effect when they eat the stores. If you are lucky the bees should get back to normal eventually.

A prolonged brood free period at this time of year will weaken your colonies and they will be less able to ward of infections and varroa later.

Best of luck!

 

[Bates]

If nothing drawn (or she starts laying again) in five days. I should help them get rid of her, as something is not right

I would of knocked her off a while ago, its for the best shes clearly no good.

 

[Polyanwood]

As most of the UK OSR is treated with systemic neonicotinoids we have to consider an effect from sublethal poisoning.

Neonicotinoids are neurotoxins, and as such they interfere with the internal communication system of the hive. The colony can't decide anymore whether it should rear brood or not.

lots of beekeepers have been or are on the OSR. What are other people's experiences?

 

[oliver90owner]

... have been or are on the OSR. What are other people's experiences?

With another neo-nic, things might be a lot worse than previous (see Bross's thread). However, not much has done on the OSR, this season. The bees will be dead in a few weeks anyway and they don't store the OSR honey for winter feed (which might make things worse). Likely, too that even though they collect lots of pollen, it is used and gone fairly quickly. A good job the later pollen (and honey) crops are not so neo-nic contaminated, perhaps.