Very poor comb drawing

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robertmote

New Bee
Joined
Jun 5, 2012
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Location
Guildford
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
1
Can you anyone help me.

I took on a swarm about 4 weeks ago, and hived OK.
After having left them for 3 days I provided feed as the weather was so poor and to enourage them to draw comb and bring the Queen into lay (which see did).
My concern is that the colony is not expanding at the rate I expected, and feel this is in part (at least) due to the very poor level of comb drawing, ie the Queen has nowhere to lay.
At each inspection I find a large pile of wax "crumbs" on the floor of the hive and the level of drawn comb does not appear to have inncreased noticeably. Holes in the foundation are now appearing, ie they are chewing it, but they do not / cannot use it to expand the foundation into drawn comb, or seemingly make their own wax.
Furthermore, the brood that has been layed is not getting capped and its not large in volume)!

Does anyone have any view on the poor comb drawing and high volume of wasted wax (crumbs).
 
How long before she started to lay?

Seems like a prime but could be small, so how big is it.

If a cast, same question.

I suspect it is a poor swarm, size-wise, and is either too cold (gaping holes in crownboard?), or perhaps an old queen, if a prime perhaps from a misfired supercedure even.

Need more info to make anything more than a guess.
 
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A swarm started 4 weeks go. Then a queen made mating flights. It takes swarm queen 8 days before it starts lay.

It is not time to colony to expand. Before new bees start to emerge, half of swarm bees have died and bees are in minimum.

If combs have not drawn, like you expect, it means nothing. Your hive have in Uk time to enlarge.
Close the mesh floor. Keep the hive warm and hive will do its best. Don't set goals to your bees. They will do what they do. your summer continues and bees rear brood.

If you want to make better build up, bye a poly box and make an insulated inner cover.
 
Laying started approx 5 - 6 days after hiving (around 22/23 July).
Size of swarm - hard to say as I did'nt collect it, certainly not the largest but equally not the smallest. I'll post a picture of the hiving.
Gaps in crown board - no.
Old queen - possible.

What do you think about the large volume of wax crumbs / low level comb drawing?
 
Holes in the foundation are now appearing, ie they are chewing it, but they do not / cannot use it to expand the foundation into drawn comb, or seemingly make their own wax.


Furthermore, the brood that has been layed is not getting capped and its not large in volume)!
.

now I looker more carefully text.

Brood is so young that they have not capped it.

Bees move wax to combs and are not able to make own = holes. Perhaps too cold hive. Too much space or too much ventilation.

Small brood patches = it is at the beginning. Too cold hive.


You have not told how much bees occupye in the box.

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Laying started approx 5 - 6 days after hiving (around 22/23 July).
Size of swarm - hard to say as I did'nt collect it, certainly not the largest but equally not the smallest. I'll post a picture of the hiving.
Gaps in crown board - no.
Old queen - possible.

What do you think about the large volume of wax crumbs / low level comb drawing?

that is imposible that hive started laying but has not capped brood.

Only explanation is that hive has been hungry for weather and it has eaten its first larvae. A swarm hive has no pollen stores to avoid rainy days' lack of protein.

Now it is again able to rear brood.
 
Is this a National box, essentially filled with foundation?

How much syrup did you provide?

How many frames have they drawn, and how many have brood?
 
As has already been mentioned, weather, forage and heat I would consider as the prime factors in a swarm building up a colony.

I used to hive swarms straight into national brood boxes but have since changed to using poly nucs. I find the swarm will build much faster given a smaller and warmer box!

There is of course one other potential factor and that is disease. If, as generally happens, the source of the swarm is unknown then there is always the possibility that the swarm came from a hive that has some form of disease.

To answer your question regarding wax crumbs on the floor of the hive, more information is needed. Was the swarm hived on just foundation or also some drawn comb?
 
Thanks everyone for responding.

Itma - Yes, using National Broodbox, and I've given feed. I left them for 3 days after hiving (as advised, so they use up their stored food, and so reduce disease transmission). I started with Ambrosia (advised by an experienced local keekeeper) as this can be used immediatly as food. However I removed this after 3 days and replaced by sugar syrup to encourage the comb drawing. They've probably used (in total) 1.5 ltr.
They've drawn on 3 - 4 frames, but only 20% max on any 1 side, and the outside face of the each outside frame hardly at all.

Yorkshirebees - Yes, with the "odd" summer, forage (and the ability to get out) has been an issue, however I dont believe this should be an issue for this lot. Lots of gardens nearby. They'be been bringing in pollen and storing but not huge amounts.
Like you I also thought the "big space" thing may be contributing - I originally hived them into a fully-framed (11) national brood box, on undrawn foundation. A week ago I reduced the box down to 7 frames and added a blank board.
Heat shouldn't be an issue as they get good morning and daytime sun - dissaapears by about 2pm as it drops over a neighbours hedge.
Disease - well, yes, this is the direction that I'm (reluctantly) moving towards, but there's no obvious signs (but then I am a bee novice!).
 
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A mystery is, to where went first week's larvae. They should be capped now.

No disease sweep them away that way.
 
Feed.

You've given them 1.5litres. More needed. How are you feeding them? My personal preference is entrance feeders as you can keep a close eye on it.

A nice wedge of nektapoll would help them too.

Dummy down and shut all ventilation. Plenty of time to build up yet.

Baggy
 
Plenty of time to build up yet.

It would seem that this 'colony' is of indeterminate size and unable to suport brood. . In all honesty, I cannot see it being an over-witering success, unless it gets attention from a beekeeper.

I get this nagging impression that it is tennis ball size, likely came with a laying queen, so may be a suercedure misfire, so a duff queen. I wonder if it is foraging at all, and if it is really worth bothering with. I may be wrong but I have watched the thread develop into a dead end.

Sory, but a wasted cause, I reckon.
 

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