Should I be putting on some sort of feed ?

[Ambodach]

I split my one hive in the May with the nucleus having a queen cell. She hatched OK but because of the lousy weather did not start laying till the beginning of this month. Even now she is not laying all that strongly and in my judgement the hive will not be strong enough to go into the winter.

Would feeding a light syrup help to stimulate the breeding, or have I left this too late now and will just have to accept that I will have to re-combine the two hives ?

Rob

 

[REDWOOD]

I split my one hive in the May with the nucleus having a queen cell. She hatched OK but because of the lousy weather did not start laying till the beginning of this month. Even now she is not laying all that strongly and in my judgement the hive will not be strong enough to go into the winter.

Would feeding a light syrup help to stimulate the breeding, or have I left this too late now and will just have to accept that I will have to re-combine the two hives ?

Rob

Do they have stores honey and pollen and how big is the colony now

 

[Silly Bee]

Do they have stores honey and pollen and how big is the colony now

Isn't part of the weekly inspection to determine if they have enough stores to last until the next?

 

[itma]

Without knowing how bad your weather has been, I'd say its unlikely that fuel carbs (sugar) or water has been in shortage.

However a shortage of pollen is a possibility, and would limit brood production. If you aren't seeing pollen stored in the hive, then sure, feed a pollen supplement.
But I rather doubt that syrup would be stimulating, as it can be in Spring when there isn't much forage around.

 

[Poly Hive]

It's been pretty dire, a lot worse than Kent for sure as my sister lives just a few miles south of Edinburgh, and a lot worse than mine here in the East Mids.

He may well need to feed to move them on a bit.

PH

 

[oliver90owner]

Three weeks is a brood cycle. She would take time to get up to speed and quite possibly was severly limited due to low numbers of service bees

There has been little time for her to get up to any decent speed if the bees are dwindling, as they will be. Putting feed on now may appear to give a boost when in reality the first round of emerging extra bees (as house bees) is the reason.

Further we have little detail with which to guess how the nuc was configured, how much the bees may have been fed instead of brooding or if any 'thermal precautions' were applied.

It may be a poor queen but could quite easily be symptomatic of a lousy year and/or some inexperience on the part of the beekeeper.

A frame of emerging brood is likely to be the best stimulant, if there is forage around IMO.

 

[Andy Duff]

It's been pretty dire, a lot worse than Kent for sure as my sister lives just a few miles south of Edinburgh, and a lot worse than mine here in the East Mids.

He may well need to feed to move them on a bit.

PH

Give them the option, if they need the feed they will use it, if they don't they will probably use it anyway

 

[Hombre]

A frame of emerging bees as RAB has suggested and swap the positions of the two hives so that there is a bolstering by flying bees.

You mention that HM didn't start laying until the beginning of July. I assume that you are happy that what she has laid is good normal worker brood?

A feed wouldn't do any harm either if they are short of stores, but the bolstering by flying bees should help rectify that. It's not too late, but they don't need any extra setbacks and could do with all the help that you can give them. Two colonies is your insurance policy, don't forget to keep up the payments . . .

 

[Finman]

you splitted the hive in May.
The bees are very old and bad to nurse larvae now and 3 weeks forward.

You should first bye a good queen.
Is it any more possible that the queen is a real layer. It has taken over 1.5 month when it started to lay after emerging. I bet that it has not been on mating flights.

But to get the colony ready to rear brood
- restrict the the bee space what bees can cover.
- take from another hive 2 frames of emerging brood. Probaply you get drones from that queen.
- restrict ventilation to 3x1 cm. Close mesh floor, close feeding holes and take match stick away from inner cover.

Don't feed it and don't shake it.

 

[Ambodach]

you splitted the hive in May.
The bees are very old and bad to nurse larvae now and 3 weeks forward.

You should first bye a good queen.
Is it any more possible that the queen is a real layer. It has taken over 1.5 month when it started to lay after emerging. I bet that it has not been on mating flights.

But to get the colony ready to rear brood
- restrict the the bee space what bees can cover.
- take from another hive 2 frames of emerging brood. Probaply you get drones from that queen.
- restrict ventilation to 3x1 cm. Close mesh floor, close feeding holes and take match stick away from inner cover.

Don't feed it and don't shake it.

OK - there was a bit of a lack of info on my first post.

The queen is laying and there must now be young bees in the hive as from memory (I'm not into keeping records) we're over 3 weeks since she started laying.

I see no point in buying a queen of unknown provenance when I have a stock of placid hard working bees.

The bees are bringing in both pollen and stores.

One problem I have created is that the original split in early May was to take
the shallow off a deep + a shallow to start this new hive; I've done this before and been able to move the bees on to a deep quite quickly --- but not his year ! I do have too much space above them in the form of a deep that they are meant to have moved into. Suggestions requested on how to resolve this.
Currently 7 of the 10 frames in the shallow have brood.

Rob