Unhappy Inspection - ?supercedure spoiled

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BugsInABox

Field Bee
***
Joined
Mar 31, 2019
Messages
848
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368
Location
South Yorkshire
Hive Type
TBH
Number of Hives
3
A bit of background, got my one and only hive (TBH) through the winter happily, it seemed to build up nicely through the early spring and mid April got together a second TBH with a view to increasing. By the last week in April things humming a long very well in Hive A and I decided to pre-empt any swarming activity by making a simple split. At this stage there were a few play cups but no sign of any serious queen rearing. I left the queen with 4 combs mixed brood/pollen and nectar and one of mostly capped honey and took the rest over to the new hive however I was uncomfortable as Hive A had had lots of drone brood and I kept asking myself how do I know I haven't just brought drone eggs over (there were eggs). A week later a I had a nose through Hive B and although a few cups had been drawn out they all appeared empty :-(, lots of capped drone a bit of capped workers - so having ascertained that Hive A was still doing well - they'd drawn at 2.5 new combs and again had plenty of stores and eggs - I took another comb of newly laid eggs from Hive and added to Hive B.

Further background - when I 1st installed the bees last year I just couldn't get them to take syrup (subsequently found out the holes had blocked with crystallized sugar - you live and learn) and they starved. I got to them before they'd all gone (but it was pretty desperate, falling form combs etc) and sprinkled with icing sugar, they revived in front of my eyes but since then I've been half expecting the queen to fail at some point. But the summer was good, come Autumn though oddly they had a comb and a half of drone again - I'd resigned to this being the problem I'd anticipated and readied myself to the risk that she'd gone drone laying and all might not be well come the spring; so I was pleased when they got through and seemed to begin to build up nicely with some classically 'good' concentric brood patterns. At inspections though I've been suspicious about the amount of drone comb I see is too much (at least half) and with a bit of luck the bees might try and sort it out by supersedure.

So back to today.
Hive B - I'm very happy, that comb I brought across has got some charged queen cells and one sealed queen cell. Probably about half of the comb I brought across has been capped as drone though. I put them away and I guess I'll just leave them alone for three weeks.

Hive A - oh dear; they've made more comb (Been an OSR flow nearby so I suspect this is how), they were grumpy and back up to almost 8 full combs but there is cross combing (not an issue I had at all last year).
Plenty of eggs, then drone, then mixed drone/worker (the queen seen on one of these), no frames had what I'd say is a great brood pattern - but they seem a bit honeybound too which I might hope is the explanation. Several play cups (never saw a one last year) nothing exciting until penultimate frame :nastily cross combed so I cut it minimally to inspect. The comb had drawn such that there was an extra fold of comb cutting across two bars - it's his I cut but horror of horror a clear queen cell spoiled. :-(
It was about half way up the comb, tucked up against the larger comb but on the edge not the face of the comb- so is it swarm or supersedure. Then on the last comb the attached picture - votes please it it swarm or supersedure. For clarity, the picture doesn't quite show it - but this is on the edge of a bifid comb - you can see the edge of the right hand side combing up behind the cell in question.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wx7s501guihj66b/img_3062.jpg?dl=0

If it is which I suspect it is then any advice as to how to proceed - I guess I have to AS and then recombine?

Sorry for the long post.

Many many thanks

Neil
 
I think I have read it all right. I would be patient a fair amount of drone comb is normal when you allow bees to build their own comb as in TBH. I would say you have little to lose by doing an AS. However, if they were mine and there were eggs in there I might make a nuc with the queen cell. That way you still have a queen on hand. See what happens in the main hive.
E
 
I thought I'd update; as much as anything by way of thank you fo the help this forum has provided so far this year.

As wisely hinted by many I'm sure I did in fact do my 'increase split' (to make hive 2) too early - the split never really go going and the parent colony ended up preparing to swarm anyway - did an AS but the original queen absconded with the artificial swarm (twice!).
This left me with two weak colonies both of doubtful queen status. The original split never developed anything except drone brood and I took a frame with a QC from colony 1 and put it in colony 2. A few weeks later BIAS and the colony has gradually built from there - now pretty strong. BIAS across 9 combs.
Colony 1 meanwhile just limped along - I'm pretty sure a queen did emerge post AS but I never saw her and they kept raising more queen cells - I was always nervous that they would cast swarm though as far as I can tell they never did. Then about 2 weeks ago they sprang into life - BIAS (about a palm size patch on 6 combs last week - double that area this).
Tips and answered questions on this forum have really been helpful and reassuring - and the advice to leave things a while and be patient seems to be right much more often than its wrong. I think if I'd waited another 2 weeks to do my first split I'd have had an easier time all together.

Anyway - after a strong spring weather wise they had plenty of stores despite the travails. Since mid June though only 3 or 4 proper summer days and today it's clear that they have been consuming those sotres as capped honey visibly down. Still there is some private and clover around still so finger crossed there's still time.

I've loved my second year of beekeeping so far - fascinating, challenging. I'm hopeful I'll be where I wanted to be come autumn - two colonies with a reasonable prospect of getting through the winter.
Thnaks again. I'm sure I'll keep popping up for help with the next disaster.
Cheers
Neil
BIAB
 
Thanks for the update, it is always good to know if our advice is right or wrong. It is often difficult to guess exactly what is going on in a hive you cannot see.
E
 

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