ksjs
House Bee
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2011
- Messages
- 195
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- North Wales
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 3
Hello,
Haven't been on here for a while, gone from 1 to 3 hives this year, dealt with my first swarms but they've had a rubbish year as far as honey goes. Hope everyone has had more luck.
Anyway, I now have 3 colonies, 1 is very strong, 1 is above average and 1 is small - this was a cast swarm that was put in a nuc and then hived. They swarmed early June and they have pretty much managed to draw / use / fill a grand total of 4 frames since. Perhaps I kept them in a nuc for too long?
I'm not sure what the best way forward for them is now. I think my options are unite or I can take 2 frames say from the strong colony to give them a boost and some more drawn comb to work with. This may though be too little too late and could compromise a good colony going into winter.
My preference would be to go into winter with 3 colonies but I guess this is pointless if 1 of those is weak.
More generally, all 3 colonies have done very poorly at drawing out comb, even after having put supers of undrawn comb beneath BB. Do I have rubbish bees, was it too wet, was it too cold, did the wet reduce nectar available, did I not feed them enough or was it a combination of that lot? The strong colony have had a super for over a month and they haven't even touched it.
Any help much appreciated.
Haven't been on here for a while, gone from 1 to 3 hives this year, dealt with my first swarms but they've had a rubbish year as far as honey goes. Hope everyone has had more luck.
Anyway, I now have 3 colonies, 1 is very strong, 1 is above average and 1 is small - this was a cast swarm that was put in a nuc and then hived. They swarmed early June and they have pretty much managed to draw / use / fill a grand total of 4 frames since. Perhaps I kept them in a nuc for too long?
I'm not sure what the best way forward for them is now. I think my options are unite or I can take 2 frames say from the strong colony to give them a boost and some more drawn comb to work with. This may though be too little too late and could compromise a good colony going into winter.
My preference would be to go into winter with 3 colonies but I guess this is pointless if 1 of those is weak.
More generally, all 3 colonies have done very poorly at drawing out comb, even after having put supers of undrawn comb beneath BB. Do I have rubbish bees, was it too wet, was it too cold, did the wet reduce nectar available, did I not feed them enough or was it a combination of that lot? The strong colony have had a super for over a month and they haven't even touched it.
Any help much appreciated.