Three Dead Colonies

[thundercat]

I am gutted... This year, I started with two strong colonies. One swarmed (a BIG swarm), but I recaptured them and this colony grew to become a double brood, six super hive. Which was fantastic given the horrible weather in the UK this year.

The other two colonies grew (on double brood), but I kept getting Q problems. It seemed like every month, there were Q cells and the Q was replaced. This continued in June, July, Aug, and Sept, so you can see how frustrating it was. I was ritualistic about looking in the hives every 7-10 days, and one week the Q was laying, and the next the Q was gone and there were unsealed Q cells with eggs in them. My policy was to let the Qs fight it out, and at the end of three weeks I always saw a single Q and no more Q cells. This Q would then start laying and all seemed well. But then, 2 weeks later, I would have the same problem... I have no idea why this is happening. I looked in the hives yesterday and one had a Q but she hasn't been laying, and the other had no Q and no evidence of laying. So, those colonies are dead. I'm surprised I haven't seen laying workers.

The swarm continued to grow, but I had to move them (about 10 feet because a neighbor complained) and yesterday, I inspected the hive to find no evidence of laying. This was a very good Q and I was hoping to breed from her next year. I have no idea why she died, and while I wasn't too bothered to lose the other 2 colonies (attributing the Q problem to bad genetics), the loss of this Q is upsetting.

 

[tonybloke]

alot of folk have had serious queen mating issues this year, mate
try a test frame from your 'still with eggs' colony in the other 2?

 

[REDWOOD]

and if you get new queen cells see if you can buy some mated queens even for abroad

 

[drstitson]

"It seemed like every month, there were Q cells and the Q was replaced. This continued in June, July, Aug, and Sept, so you can see how frustrating it was."

"I was ritualistic about looking in the hives every 7-10 days"

Not half as frustrating as it must have been for the virgins, trying to get mated in poor weather, having someone going into their bachelorette pad every week.

if you find QCs that you intend to leave in a hive then leave that hive alone. no peeking for 3-4 weeks.

sorry to break the bad news but i think we can assume that beek is at least equally complicit here with the bees and the weather. or rather the bees are just trying to sort out the mess caused by beek+weather.

 

[drstitson]

just cos there is no brood doesn't mean there is no fertile live queen. have you been treating with apiguard or similar????

 

[enrico]

You say you have queens but no brood so the hive is dead.....why?
I and many other beekeepers have hives with queen and no brood at this time of the year. That's what they do, stop laying eggs and start laying down stores. Feed them so that they have stores, don't open them again other than to remove q excluders and leave them till a warm day in feb or march. Open them and THEN moan if you have no brood!
E

 

[drstitson]

"don't open them again other than to remove q excluders"

these should surely have gone when supers removed prior to apiguarding?

 

[enrico]

I agree but I was just making sure!!!

 

[Chris58]

For the past 8 weeks (at least) we've had a hive that's seemingly had no queen. We have checked every week, and MJBee has even given us frames of eggs, which have hatched out, but with no queen cells, and no sign of queen, no eggs or brood. So 8 weeks plus later, why we still got thousands of bees, a national wall to wall of stores, but still no eggs or larvae? We must have the longest living bees in history!

 

[Outlander]

You Lucky bleeder. You have a queen and no eggs. How lucky is that, I have eggs and no queen, haven’t seen her since beginning of August and what have the Roman's ever done for us.

 

[bobandbec]

Just because there's no E&B and you can't see the queen doesn't mean there is no queen!

Peter

 

[derekm]

I am gutted... This year, I started with two strong colonies. One swarmed (a BIG swarm), but I recaptured them and this colony grew to become a double brood, six super hive. Which was fantastic given the horrible weather in the UK this year.

The other two colonies grew (on double brood), but I kept getting Q problems. It seemed like every month, there were Q cells and the Q was replaced. This continued in June, July, Aug, and Sept, so you can see how frustrating it was. I was ritualistic about looking in the hives every 7-10 days, and one week the Q was laying, and the next the Q was gone and there were unsealed Q cells with eggs in them. My policy was to let the Qs fight it out, and at the end of three weeks I always saw a single Q and no more Q cells. This Q would then start laying and all seemed well. But then, 2 weeks later, I would have the same problem... I have no idea why this is happening. I looked in the hives yesterday and one had a Q but she hasn't been laying, and the other had no Q and no evidence of laying. So, those colonies are dead. I'm surprised I haven't seen laying workers.

The swarm continued to grow, but I had to move them (about 10 feet because a neighbor complained) and yesterday, I inspected the hive to find no evidence of laying. This was a very good Q and I was hoping to breed from her next year. I have no idea why she died, and while I wasn't too bothered to lose the other 2 colonies (attributing the Q problem to bad genetics), the loss of this Q is upsetting.

Something may have stimulated the bees in to responding as though its "winter". i.e. a fertile female not laying. We had a similar issue with 3 colonies out of 5. All three were brought back into lay after increasing the warmth and darkness of the nest by changing the configuration of the hive

You have a choice of leaving them in winter mode or bringing them out

 

[Chris Luck]

For 8 weeks a national wall to wall of stores, but still no eggs or larvae? We must have the longest living bees in history!

Not at all, these bees could easily live 6 months with stores, certainly 5 wouldn't be odd.

Chris

 

[bobster]

I too have a colony with no eggs or brood. Up until about a month ago they were ticking along fine. Last weekend and this no eggs or brood. I can't find the queen either, she is not marked.

No sign of emergency cells, no queen cells either, bees seem happy enough, bringing in pollen, looks like they have plenty of stores. Their brood comb in the centre of the colony is now about 2/3 stores.

So what to do .... maybe I missed the queen, maybe the queen is dead.

I think what I will do is put a test comb in from my other colony and see if they try and build a queen/emergency cell. If they do I think that answers this question. Then it just poses another one, what to do with a Q- colony this time of year?

Is this a good plan?

Bobster

 

[Aggravated]

Hi

I didn't take my QE off but the Q has found a way through anyway, I have now taken it off

 

[Cazza]

Personally I have no idea what the state of at least 5 of my hives is at this time of year because I would rarely inspect them after the end of August. I know they are collecting lots of pollen and nectar and are storing this but that's about it. I have no intention of poking them about and opening up until I possibly give some of them Oxalic at Christmas.
Sometimes it's best to leave well alone and wait and see. Bees have a habit of sorting themselves out.
Cazza

 

[beeno]

Personally I have no idea what the state of at least 5 of my hives is at this time of year because I would rarely inspect them after the end of August. I know they are collecting lots of pollen and nectar and are storing this but that's about it. I have no intention of poking them about and opening up until I possibly give some of them Oxalic at Christmas.
Sometimes it's best to leave well alone and wait and see. Bees have a habit of sorting themselves out.
Cazza

Hi Cazza,
Hope you are ace at hefting then, as there is pretty little storing and a lot of brood rearing going on in large parts of the country!

 

[Sir Quej]

Personally I have no idea what the state of at least 5 of my hives is at this time of year because I would rarely inspect them after the end of August. I know they are collecting lots of pollen and nectar and are storing this but that's about it. I have no intention of poking them about and opening up until I possibly give some of them Oxalic at Christmas.
Sometimes it's best to leave well alone and wait and see. Bees have a habit of sorting themselves out.
Cazza

Cazza, me too. My last inspection was at the end of August. I stopped inspecting and switched to feeding. On the last inspection all hives looked strong with plenty of stores and plenty of brood. All three queens were still laying and I dont see what I can gain now from poking about in them and upsetting them at this time of year.

This is my first year and it was my mentor who runs 50 hives and has been keeping for many years who advised me so hopefully he knows what he is doing..lol

Only time will tell I guess.

 

[Dishmop]

In August I returned home from a week away and my observation hive wasnt as full as it should have been, but as the queen is clipped I didnt think that they had swarmed. They have done so before but came back when they found the queen wasnt with them. Not a great amount of brood about. Possibly a break in laying and natural wastage, and they had eaten most of their small amount of stores.
Fed them on and off for a month and there was evidence that the queen was still there although I didnt see her until two weeks ago.
This last couple of weeks they have packed in a lot of stores but not much of it has been capped yet.

I checked my other hives yesterday and am really pleased with how well they are doing as I left them fairly much to themselves this year because I had swapped thier hives from Warres to nationals, I had frames in the Warre hives so these went into the new hives with adaptors on, so decided to see what they were going to do. This meant I was using double brood boxes which are now well stocked with brood and stores. One has double brood and a half full super.
These two hives are from a little swarm that trickled in over the course of a day on the day I was due to go and pick up my first nuc to stock the hive that the invaders had just moved into.
Over the last few days all hives have been very busy once the temperture gets up to over about 12 degrees.

 

[enrico]

Cazza you are so right....there are too many people inspecting for no reason and then wondering why they can't find queens, eggs or brood......LEAVE THEM ALONE! Always ask yourself why you are inspecting, just to find queen eggs or brood at this time of the year is not good enough in my opinion, what are you going to do if you find none? Nothing now! so let them be and sort them out in the spring
Nine times out of ten you will open them in spring and there they all will be.... Queen, eggs and brood. They want to survive so generally they will. A heft for food is all you need to do,
E