The stresses of beekeeping

[Luna]

Last year was the first year we have our bees (I did the course a few years back but we were renting at the time and then moved so we gave it a miss for a bit), they were strong going into winter. Then you start to worry over the winter period (well I did), if they would survive and why is winter so long and why can’t spring hurry up?!

Anyway they (and me) made it through our first winter. What honey they made last year I let them keep. They were bursting at the seams when we did our first spring inspection so on goes the super with new foundation and when checking (with our mentor) no sealed queen cells were spotted but queen cells were being drawn so the plan was to do AS the following week.

Following week arrived and we went to do AS and the amount of bees was definitely less than the week before. They had beaten us to it and swarmed and we missed them doing it. Anyway, there were a few sealed queen cells and the hive was still quite strong so we decide to do a AS anyway.

Roll on 6-7 weeks check both hives; the new hive we spot the queen (and mark her) and there is brood. Happy days. Check the old hive and no sign of a queen or brood but polished cells. We decide to drop a test frame in to see what happens. Both hives calm as lambs and happily going about their business, bringing in pollen, stores etc and both hives had a lot of stores (no starving).

Again roll on 3 weeks (yesterday) and the new hive with the lovely marked queen. We spot her and she has been happily laying but laying drone brood. Well 95% drone and about 5% worker brood. The cappings are all lumpy bumpy so you can see it is drone brood in worker foundation. We cage the queen and move on to the old hive to see what was there and numbers are dewindling. Still happy bees but no brood/eggs, again no sighting of a queen and they raised the test frame as brood and made no attempt of raising a queen!

Gutted is putting it politely. Seeing as we had no brood or queen cells we decided to release the queen back into her hive.

Our plan of action is 1) requeen the new hive and 2) merge the old and new hives together

Any hints/tips? It was early/mid-April when we did the A/S so if there was a queen in the old hive she should have been laying by now

 

[Midland Beek]

Anyway they (and me) made it through our first winter. What honey they made last year I let them keep. They were bursting at the seams when we did our first spring inspection so on goes the super with new foundation and when checking (with our mentor) no sealed queen cells were spotted but queen cells were being drawn so the plan was to do AS the following week.

Sound advice in artificially swarming them. However, it really had to be done before any queen cell got sealed over, or else there is the chance that a swarm would leave.

Following week arrived and we went to do AS and the amount of bees was definitely less than the week before. They had beaten us to it and swarmed and we missed them doing it. Anyway, there were a few sealed queen cells and the hive was still quite strong so we decide to do a AS anyway..

Well, by that time you were dealing with a swarmed stock, so it ws not so much of an artificial swarm that you were doing; you were just making a split to increase the chances of getting at least one mated and egg laying queen at the end of it all.

Roll on 6-7 weeks check both hives; the new hive we spot the queen (and mark her) and there is brood. Happy days. Check the old hive and no sign of a queen or brood but polished cells. We decide to drop a test frame in to see what happens. Both hives calm as lambs and happily going about their business, bringing in pollen, stores etc and both hives had a lot of stores (no starving)...

Marking the new queen was no bad thing seen she was laying eggs.

Again roll on 3 weeks (yesterday) and the new hive with the lovely marked queen. We spot her and she has been happily laying but laying drone brood. Well 95% drone and about 5% worker brood. The cappings are all lumpy bumpy so you can see it is drone brood in worker foundation. We cage the queen and move on to the old hive to see what was there and numbers are dewindling. Still happy bees but no brood/eggs, again no sighting of a queen and they raised the test frame as brood and made no attempt of raising a queen!)...

Not sure waht is going on in the hive that was the recipient of the test frame. A queen that does not mate starts to lay eggs after about 4 weeks, and this is how you get your drone laying queen. No eggs on the test frame would indicate that there is a queen in there, and the presumption is that she has for some reason not come into lay.

Bees are nothing without a queen. Killing the DLQ that you marked and introducing a new, bought queen is one, and perhaps the only, fix.