The ongoing queen/brood saga...

[malawi2854]

As many of you may remember - my trials and tribulations with my supposedly largest colony a couple of weeks ago, here:
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=11248

It might be wishful thinking (although I don't think so...), but that colony with all the troubles might be showing signs of improvement...

There is an area of normal-looking sealed brood developing on one frame - and a collection of larvae around it - which only time will tell if they are worker or drone.
Saw a few eggs too - not many, but a few.


There is still quite a mess of those odd drone cells in the middle of a couple of frames - but I don't think they are growing in number.

The patch of good-looking worker brood is in a nice defined patch - not in the middle of the frame, up at the top - but then, the middle still has this weird drone brood in it.

I am still half expecting the colony to wipe itself out - but I thought this looked a little more promising.


Just thought i would share...

I'll try and take a couple of pictures of the comb if I can "pop in" during the week.


I have now sourced myself another hive, with a good strong colony in it - so I will probably strengthen both colonies with a frame of brood next week perhaps.
Is there anything I need to be particularly aware of with introducing these frames? Will they accept them OK?


Thanks - for your assistance, and for your continued patience!

 

[huntsman666]

Sounds as though you now have a laying queen. Congrats!

Yes, they'll accept brood at all stages but no bees.

 

[huntsman666]

Sounds as though you now have a laying queen. Congrats!

Yes, they'll accept brood at all stages but no bees unless you want to unite.

 

[fuzzysi]

I have a similar situation. After not having time to get to the bees for a good few weeks (new baby!) my strongest colony now only have a handful of bees due to swarming that i wasnt able to prevent and there is no sign of any queen, but there are a few unopened queen cells that i'm hoping they have left behind for themselves.
Another colony did the same but I marked a new queen in there yesterday so all looks well there!
I'm going to swap some frames of eggs round as soon as there are enough in the second colony.
Fortunately they both swarmed into bait hives and they are getting going well also!
Have lots of patience and trust the bees know what they are doing too!

 

[oliver90owner]

fuzzysi,

Don't reinforce with eggs or open brood if very weak. There may not be enough bees to service the larvae and keep them warm. Far better to introduce a patch of emerging brood as this will need the minimum of attention from the weak colony. As the house bees increase, by all means give a larger amount to help them along as they accelerate their own egg laying.

You could add bees by powdering all bees with icing sugar or some similar method, but they may return to the parent colony, if flying bees, and can cause robbing to be started.

Regards, RAB