Recently housed swarm dwindling numbers

[JustAddBees]

Hi All,

I housed a swarm on Saturday as my first ever beekeeping experience. Am I right in thinking that a swarm is made up of older worker bees, therefore I might expect the colony to shrink in size initially as older bees die before new bees are hatched?

I'm just concerned after seeing significantly fewer flying bees today (day 3). I sneaked a peak in the hive and there looks to be less bees than when I housed them on Saturday.

They were small to begin with so I'm worried that;

a) They may not survive

b) They may not achieve the magical 12 bars of comb before winter

I'm feeding them 1:1 sugar syrup to get them started with drawing comb. Can anyone give advice on how long to feed them?

Thanks, Sam

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[Erichalfbee]

They look fewer because they are huddling for warmth and to draw the wax they need to house their brood.
70% of the bees in a swarm are YOUNG bees.
Make sure they are snug and warm. Ideally in a poly nuc.
If they are in a full size hive then dummy the space down to one frame bigger than they are, fill the rest with insulation and close off the OMF with your inspection tray.
Go easy with the feeding....little and often so that they do not fill the cells they make with syrup....they need them for brood.

You probably have a cast swarm headed by a virgin queen, so she needs to get out to mate before you have any eggs.
Best of luck

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Am I right in thinking that a swarm is made up of older worker bees, therefore I might expect the colony to shrink in size initially as older bees die before new bees are hatched?

No - that was the old thinking, but now it has been proven there is a mix of ages, with the majority being younger bees as they will be needed to make wax, nurse brood when they settle. Remember that just because the younger bees don't fly, it doesn't mean they can't. Bees can fly from about three days old.

 

[pargyle]

They look fewer because they are huddling for warmth and to draw the wax they need to house their brood.
70% of the bees in a swarm are YOUNG bees.
Make sure they are snug and warm. Ideally in a poly nuc.
If they are in a full size hive then dummy the space down to one frame bigger than they are, fill the rest with insulation and close off the OMF with your inspection tray.
Go easy with the feeding....little and often so that they do not fill the cells they make with syrup....they need them for brood.

You probably have a cast swarm headed by a virgin queen, so she needs to get out to mate before you have any eggs.
Best of luck

He's got a TBH and at present and they have 8 bars to work on - which might be a bit too much for them with the slightly colder weather we are experiencing ... and no top insulation.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=33934

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?p=482850#post482850

 

[JustAddBees]

He's got a TBH and at present and they have 8 bars to work on - which might be a bit too much for them with the slightly colder weather we are experiencing ... and no top insulation.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=33934

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?p=482850#post482850

That's correct. Thanks for filling in the gaps Phil.

I'd say they looked to be occupying one end of the first 2-3 bars.

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[thenovice]

Hi All,

I housed a swarm on Saturday as my first ever beekeeping experience. Am I right in thinking that a swarm is made up of older worker bees, therefore I might expect the colony to shrink in size initially as older bees die before new bees are hatched?

I'm just concerned after seeing significantly fewer flying bees today (day 3). I sneaked a peak in the hive and there looks to be less bees than when I housed them on Saturday.

They were small to begin with so I'm worried that;

a) They may not survive

b) They may not achieve the magical 12 bars of comb before winter

I'm feeding them 1:1 sugar syrup to get them started with drawing comb. Can anyone give advice on how long to feed them?

Thanks, Sam

Sent from my HTC One mini using Tapatalk

could be that:

1. nicer weather the other day so more out and about?
2. building wax so nicely huddled up
3. do you see many dead bees under the hive or on the floor of your hive? if not, i wouldn't worry...

 

[pargyle]

That's correct. Thanks for filling in the gaps Phil.

I'd say they looked to be occupying one end of the first 2-3 bars.

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Move the divider so they only have four bars not 8.

What sort of a feeder are you using ? If it's the sort that sits in the hive with a couple of jars on a shelf with a lot of space around it then take it out - after a couple of litres to get them going they really should not need any more syrup if there is forage about. Check what is in flower around your area ... and if they are coming in to the hive 'loaded'. A 'frame' feeder is a better option in a TBH:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t...%2Fforum%2Findex.php%3Ftopic%3D7561.0;800;599

Find a slab of insulation of somesort .. ideally Kingspan - you can buy a slab of 25mm thickness from Wickes for a few quid, cut it to the size of the top of the hive and put it on top of the bars before you put the roof on. If you haven't filled the empty space in the hive with some insulation then do it .. a Bin Bag full of straw or old rags or whatever will be better than nothing.

At this early stage of colony development they need all the help they can get to keep their environment at the temperature that they want for comb building and then brood rearing .. A space they can cope with and insulation are a great help.

Once you've set this up .. stop fiddling with them. If you have a caste and there is a virgin in there the less disturbance the better, once you know there's a laying queen in residence then they will need another bar adding every few days so they can build the comb she will need to lay in, a bar at a time though.

But, be warned, new free comb can be quite soft so you will have to be very careful handling it ... they will also try and join the combs to the hive sides which means you have to slide a knife down to cut it free if you want to lift a bar out.

If you can see she's laying through the 'window' in your hive side then don't lift the bars out, leave them in place. If you can't see through the 'window' then it was probably a waste of time anyway !! Start at the 'back' of the hive and rather than lifting the bars just move them along until you find eggs/larvae .. then stop .. push the bars back and leave them alone.

Welcome the world of top bar beekeeping .. there's a few on here who have been there and have moved on ... including me. Save up for a 'proper' hive ... or build one with frames. Top bar hives are fun and it's fascinating to watch them build out comb but I reckon they are a hive that a beekeeper with a couple of seasons under their belt can cope with better than a new beekeeper.

Good luck.

 

[itma]

Sensible stuff from Pargyle there.


Because it's about a month* after swarming before new bees are likely to begin emerging, and some bees are going to die during that time, the size of the caught-swarm colony will decrease somewhat (during that time) before it starts rebuilding numbers.
Which means that you need to provide better for a small swarm ...

* potentially up to a month and a half for a cast (headed by an un-mated Queen)

 

[JustAddBees]

Thanks very much everyone, there's masses of help in your replies.

May plan, based on all your help, is to leave them now until Friday. If the weather suits, I'll have an opportunity in the afternoon to suit up and do the following;

a) Reduce hive space to 4 bars.
b) Top up feeder one last time. No doubt they will finish what I gave them yesterday well in advance of Friday. This being the last dose, I will have fed them 1.2 litres. They can work their way through that at their leisure while I am away, and I'll take the feeder out after my holiday (return 20th June).
c) Insulate hive with loose packed straw in void and celotex/kingspan over bars.

Any comments/thoughts on the above would be gratefully received.

BTW, my feeder is indeed a shelf with jars, what's the disadvantage?

 

[pargyle]

BTW, my feeder is indeed a shelf with jars, what's the disadvantage?

Only the amount of space it creates within the brood area .. the more volume they have to heat the harder the job they face .. two jars of syrup are a fairly sizeable heat sink and the space around them is dead space .. but still needs to be heated by the colony.

 

[mbc]

Sorry to be the voice of doom but the first thing that occurred to me on reading the op was that they'd boogered orff.

 

[JustAddBees]

Sorry to be the voice of doom but the first thing that occurred to me on reading the op was that they'd boogered orff.

That was my initial concern, but they were hard at work flying again yesterday in the marginally warmer weather. I just think the recent cool night's and mediocre daytime weather are causing them to huddle in the hive and concentrate on keeping warm rather than getting out and foraging. My inexperience probably accounts for thinking there was less of them when I saw them bunched together.

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[jenkinsbrynmair]

Also if you have a laying queen in there, until the population expands the majority of bees will be busy caring for the brood

 

[itma]

...
.. two jars of syrup are a fairly sizeable heat sink and the space around them is dead space .. but still needs to be heated by the colony.

Or, more precisely, those heat losses drain heat away from the brood area which is the only part of the hive the bees try to heat, and they have to keep that around 34C - which gets harder the more space and wall area it is sitting within (and yes, it also involves the insulation of those walls, which includes the roof, and the air movement, humidity, etc, etc).
Thing is, the bees don't try and heat the hive - only the brood nest, and some of us take the trouble to make that as easy as possible for the bees, so their effort can be better employed.

 

[pargyle]

Or, more precisely, those heat losses drain heat away from the brood area which is the only part of the hive the bees try to heat, and they have to keep that around 34C - which gets harder the more space and wall area it is sitting within (and yes, it also involves the insulation of those walls, which includes the roof, and the air movement, humidity, etc, etc).
Thing is, the bees don't try and heat the hive - only the brood nest, and some of us take the trouble to make that as easy as possible for the bees, so their effort can be better employed.

+1 ... That's a better explanation of the problem you face. You also need to consider that, at present, it's not very cold - just chilly at times .. but when you get to winter you may find that, because of the shape of a long hive and where they will put their honey stores, bees can 'paint themselves into a corner'. They eat their way to one end of the hive and then are reluctant to move to where there are stores at the other end -and starve with stores still in the hive.

One of the reasons I super-insulated my long deep hive and manipulated the brood/stores areas in autumn was to reduce the prospect of isolation starvation which can be a problem in Long Hives that are not insulated.

In beekeeping you need to try and keep ahead of the game .. the season comes and goes very quickly and before you know it the next challenge is successfully overwintering your colony. For a new beekeeper there are constant trials and challenges and whilst it is mostly simple things you need to do - they sometimes come all at once and understanding what may happen and how to put steps in to prevent it requires a pretty steep learning curve.

Top Bar Hives are not that common in many BKA's and in some respects you will be on your own .. it's one of the reasons why (IMO) it's better to learn on a more conventional hive, get the principles in place, then play with a TBH. I did it the wrong way .. so it's the voice of experience !