To feed or not to feed?

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Joined
May 19, 2014
Messages
92
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Location
Oldham
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
3
I recently split my only hive in an attempt to stop them swarming after finding some sealed QC's during an inspection. This was on July 9th. We .had not seen a swarm leave, but the presence of QC's and being unable to spot the queen led us to believe that it was very likely that they had already swarmed

I knocked down all but one QC and moved this frame to a new brood box along with two other frames of brood and two of stores. I also added three frames of foundation (didn't have any more ready), one at the front the hive and two at the back.

Neither my mentor nor I was able to find the queen at the time (she wasn't marked), and it appears that I may have transferred her over to the new hive as a week after the split there were no uncapped brood in there and the QC that I transferred had been broken down, but by July 25 there were some quite large larvae present which seems too soon for a newly hatched queen to have laid?

The original hive had masses of QC's on inspection which were knocked down to one as well, and last week she hatched when I was inspecting.

Anyway, I inspected the new hive again today and found that although there was plenty of BIAS and stores, they hadn't really started to draw out the new foundation that I had put in on the 9th.

I also managed to mark the queen in the new hive today as well, the first time I have seen any queen whilst inspecting on my own.

There were plenty of bees in the colony at 4pm today, and I added the missing frames of foundation but I am a little concerned that they haven't really started to draw out any new frames yet just in case the queen decides to swarm as she hasn't enough space to lay in.

So, my question is should I feed or not, and if so should it be 1:1?

Thanks

Andy
 
Feed 1:1
Rapid feeder or frame feeder
Or possibly you could just split open a bag of Candipol pollen/fondant mix and put on top of crownboard with feeder hole open to allow bees access.

Recent quick inspections of my NZ Italians showed little stores and I have already started feeding some with 1:1... supers removed.
May put supers back on if the HB gets going!

Native bees seem to have provisioned themselves quite well so do not need additional feed

Good luck

Yeghes da
 
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Then only way to make them draw combs is to feed.

5 kg Sugar to draw one box of foundations. I have used in that purpose 30% syrup that they do not cap Sugar stores
 
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Just reading through this again.....the new brood box had 3 frames of brood plus a queen cell and plus the original queen. Did you shake some bees in as well? I was thinking it is a small split with only 3 frames of brood and it is a big box. Perhaps not enough bees? If there was a flow on during the time of the split...would there be enough bees foraging to create a need for more comb? Would there be enough bees to look after brood at the same time?
You could create a flow by feeding....now some of the new bees have emerged....they might then build comb to store it. Also....could you use some insulation to make the space a bit smaller? It seems they must have at least 5 frames of foundation. Otherwise....I have no idea...since I am a beginner!
Oh Goody...I was on the right track.....so I am learning something after all!
Other posts came up at the same time!!
 
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We use telescoping 3 frame nuc boxes adding three frames of ready drawn brood frame ( gold dust) above the 3 frames in the bottom section... feeder ( Miller type) that slots on goes on top.. can be removed to feed Candipol,
Once established can be transferred to a 6 frame polly for ease of transport and or selling on.
One well established and respected Welsh speaking Native bee keeper has colonies set up just for drawing comb!

Yeghes da
 
So the consensus is to feed so that they can draw comb.

I had suspected that was the correct course of action, hence my post on here but it is always good to have it confirmed by those with more experience.

. Did you shake some bees in as well? I was thinking it is a small split with only 3 frames of brood and it is a big box. Perhaps not enough bees?

Yes, we also shook in another frame-full of bees when we did the split, and there was no shortage of bees in there yesterday.

Perhaps there are too many, and not enough flow to allow them to draw comb as well as feed themselves?

I will put a couple of pints of 1:1 on tonight, and I will also put some on the original hive as that too had 5 frames of foundation added when I did the split.

I haven't looked into the original hive since I released a new queen into it 10 days ago - leaving for another couple of weeks to allow her to get mated and start laying so I don't know if they have started building, but the front of the hive was very very busy yesterday.

They had about half a super's worth of partially capped stores at last inspection so they could have enough to build with.

If the original hive doesn't take the feed then at least I will know they are OK

Andy
 
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Shaking of bees does not help because bees return to old place.
You may get rid of suden with that trick.

Take a frame of emerging bees and shake bees into home hive before you move the brood frame.
 
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Shaking of bees does not help because bees return to old place.
You may get rid of suden with that trick.

Take a frame of emerging bees and shake bees into home hive before you move the brood frame.

Yes I understand what you mean...I know the flyers would return.....I should have said...add young bees.....or emerging bees!
 
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How do you sieve young bees?. And there is a big risk that they kill the queen.
 
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Take a frame of emerging bees and shake bees into home hive before you move the brood frame.

I gently shook the frame into the original hive first to remove any flying bees, then shook more violently into the new hive to dislogde nurse bees and other non-flyers before putting the frame back into the original hive.

We hoped that would give the new queen some extra help with the emerging brood.

They didnt kill the queen as I saw her yesterday.

Andy
 
I gently shook the frame into the original hive first to remove any flying bees, then shook more violently into the new hive to dislogde nurse bees and other non-flyers before putting the frame back into the original hive.

We hoped that would give the new queen some extra help with the emerging brood.

They didnt kill the queen as I saw her yesterday.

Andy

Exactly what I do when making up nucs from Demarree's etc. :)
 

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