Queenless Hive

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spikespearman

New Bee
Joined
Sep 5, 2010
Messages
13
Reaction score
0
Location
Spain
Hive Type
TBH
Number of Hives
1-2
Hi everyone,

I'm new to bee keeping. Last Christmas I was reading about the plight of the Honey Bee and thought right I'll build a Top Bar Hive, I wasn't sure about where I was going to get some bees, but decided on trying to attract some with lemon grass scent and swarm pheromone in the hive. Got the Hive in position by the end of January and then found one day at the end of March a swarm had moved in:party: I was so proud they had thought the humble dwelling up to scratch:party: and gave them lots of sugar water to get going...Anyway not long after I found another swarm on the hedge near the hive...I thought is it a case of the early bird catches the worm and this worm is already taken...Anyway feeling a bit sorry for them I knocked up another quick hive, but the swarm had dwindled, by the time I had finished. The Queen was there but with only about 50-60 helpers, so I decided to nick a bit of comb from the first hive (now doing well) with some brood and give it to poor old Queeny2...the bees jumped on it straight away and got going building up the hive, with plenty of sugar water of course.:sifone: Then disaster:mad: I found some bug must have got in the first hive as grubs were boring their way through honey comb and some had collapsed onto the screen floor..:mad: There were so many I decided to abandon the hive and place the remanding bees in a smaller nuke I had made, and as hive 2 was now doing well I nicked a bit of their comb to start them off in hive 1b :blush5: but then i noticed no queen...she must have died in a comb collapse:mad: This lead me to read a bit about Queen rearing...I got a grafting tool and took a few eggs from Hive 2 and put them in little wax cups I made by molding wax around the blunt end of a Bic pen and sticking them on the frame next to their comb.
So the question is....I know... after a long story. but I had to share it bee-smillie, will it work with only 80 - 100 bees left in hive 1b?
 
Wow. You just put lemon grass and pheremone in the hive and a swarm came to live there? Here in Manchester you will rarely see a honey bee, so to have a swarm of them come to live in your hive is great :) I wonder where you live, you must have a fair few apiaries in that region unless you were just extremely lucky.

welcome btw :)
 
How lucky was that you must have had the only swarm at the end of March available in the country this year.
 
Well...actually I'm in Spain, so probably the timings for swarms are different, and no there are no apiaries near me but Beekeepers tend to move thier bees around the country here, so I guess some bees decided to leg it when they had the chance. :) Anyway I wasn't really contenplating taking any honey from the hives...just wanted to help the bees.
 
I would be seriously worried about the grubs burrowing through the frames. I would suggest you report the matter to the relevant authourities ASAP if not sooner.

RAB
 
Thanks Rab...yes they did have quite a set of teeth, that's why I gave them a nice clean Nuke and a bit of uncontaminated comb from hive 2. I wish I had taken some pictures, but I was too busy killing them off. I'm sure professionals probable use all sorts of chemicals to kill them before they get that far, but I'm only interested in letting the bees do their thing as much as possible...to be as close to be in the wild as possible.
 
No...I've seen those little sods on youtube.... what i found on one of the combs was a much bigger black amoured plated S.O.B...I reduced the entrance size after and solved the problem, but I guess it had already done its dastardly deed. Unseen to my naked eyes.
 
Hi kazmcc....Thanks....yes I guess it was lucky..I just thought I'll build a hive.. the bees usually are keen on the hedging flowers so they should come across it on their travels...I didn't have to do any swarm catching or anything they just moved in. :lurk5:
 
Ah, you are in Spain. I don't think I'd ever seen a honey bee until I began bee keeping :)

I hope you identify your critter. I would like to try a tbh one day.
 
Hi kazmcc,

Yes i did identify the cause. You can also see a pic I put up today of hive two's comb on the topbar. bee-smillie
 

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