What did you do in the Apiary today?

[drex]

20 degrees here today, bright sunshine. Did my preparatory checks before sorting them out for winter. All production colonies on double brood. Most full to the top with stores, despite doing my final extraction of supers later than usual. However still plenty of brood being produced, one colony had eight frames. Looks like I will not have to feed this year. One colony had no eggs or uncapped larvae, queen present. She might have gone off lay due to Apiguard, but she was the only old queen in any of my colonies, and so I culled her and united with a nuc with a 2017 queen

Am taking seven nucs through the winter, ( home made boxes) same as I did last year. ( All came through well) . I place them side by side in a block and insulate round the outside. They are all on the light side and got given some frames of stores from the main colonies. I expect they will need fondant later. I use these as brood factories ( as per Michael Palmer) to boost my production colonies in spring

All in all it is looking good for the winter. They are busy on the ivy

 

[JWF]

My bees appear to be very very busy - busy crapping all over everybody's cars about 50m each way along the street. Oops. Good job it washes off easily.

 

[Millet]

Fourth and hopefully the final vape today, all hives dropped an average of about 45 mites over a 7day period which is the least i have ever had, fed another 10lt of 2:1 spread out to the three of them, i think i might be somewhere near to a winter weight and they are on the ivy i think as they are piling yellow pollen in with some bees carrying large loads and still the odd bit of RBWH blue pollen is also coming in in small amounts.

 

[JWF]

Topped up feed on two hives.

Sprayed 13 supers with Certan and they're now in the outhouse with a fan blowing on them to dry them out a bit before I chuck them up in the loft for storage until I need them next year.

I've had quite a bit of wax moth damage during the year so I hope this will keep the super frames in good condition.

The bees are piling the ivy in and there's a strong smell from it in the garden quite a distance from the hives. Weights are increasing nicely so I don't think I'll need to feed too much this year.

 

[Erichalfbee]

After a 7th vape on a hive still dropping hundreds I've treated them to a couple of Apitraz strips

 

[nantmoel]

Extracted the last of this years honey, not a bad season. The weather in S Wales has been horrible since the end of June. Something that stands out for me was in early June I put a super of undrawn frames on a hive at 19:00, I checked the following morning around 9:30 as I was going away and they had drawn ever frame.

 

[Millet]

Extracted the last of this years honey, not a bad season. The weather in S Wales has been horrible since the end of June. Something that stands out for me was in early June I put a super of undrawn frames on a hive at 19:00, I checked the following morning around 9:30 as I was going away and they had drawn ever frame.

I do not know if it is normal but one of mine must have been drawing comb over the past seven days judging by the wax scales on the inspection tray.

 

[pargyle]

I do not know if it is normal but one of mine must have been drawing comb over the past seven days judging by the wax scales on the inspection tray.

Or uncapping and moving honey about .... are you sure they are not being robbed ? Classic sign of robbing - lots of wax on the inspection board across the areas under all the frames - if they are just eating it mine tend to take it a frame at a time and you just see a line of wax scales on the board under one or two frames.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I do not know if it is normal but one of mine must have been drawing comb over the past seven days judging by the wax scales on the inspection tray.

Yes quite normal, Steve, several of mine are also dropping a lot of scales while drawing new comb.

 

[Millet]

Yes quite normal, Steve, several of mine are also dropping a lot of scales while drawing new comb.

Thank you for your experienced answer P, i have seen wax scales all through the season but not this late, i however have different bees now similar to yours so that maybe why.

 

[Millet]

Or uncapping and moving honey about .... are you sure they are not being robbed ? Classic sign of robbing - lots of wax on the inspection board across the areas under all the frames - if they are just eating it mine tend to take it a frame at a time and you just see a line of wax scales on the board under one or two frames.

Thank you for that , i maybe thick but not that thick.. lol , the scales i mentioned are wax scales , not removed capping's of any kind, raw unrefined wax so to speak.

 

[G4WIL]

After a 7th vape on a hive still dropping hundreds I've treated them to a couple of Apitraz strips

Your bees must be living in a permanent fog [emoji23][emoji23]


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[bjosephd]

Just put a totally robbed out, wasped out, barely alive hive into a nuc, blocked up entrance, moved, put fondant on.

Rather sad and hopeless, bit the queen remains so seems worth a try. Not really a winter's worth of bees though.

 

[pargyle]

Just put a totally robbed out, wasped out, barely alive hive into a nuc, blocked up entrance, moved, put fondant on.

Rather sad and hopeless, bit the queen remains so seems worth a try. Not really a winter's worth of bees though.

Just out of interest - and this is in no way critical - how did they get to the state where they succumbed to attacks that left them like this. I've seen it happen in other people's colonies but it's usually either a poorly laying queen that has left an undersized colony or disease/overt infestation, or a colony left depleted by multiple swarms that has led to the colony unable to defend itself.

I've never seen a strong, healthy, colony unable to defend itself - there's usally something that triggers a rob-out. No doubt there will be someone along shortly to tell me that it does happen - just that I've never seen it.

In the circumstances you are describing they may have been a lost cause anyway ... I'm the biggest softie there is when it comes to my bees but occasionally you do find a colony that really can't help themselves and perhaps need intervention.

 

[protheroe]

Huge beech came down and smashed a double brood to pieces sunk another hive four inches into ground and knocked another three over which I salvaged.glad I wasn't there at the time.it was rotten in centre but looked fine on outside..

 

[bjosephd]

Just out of interest - and this is in no way critical - how did they get to the state where they succumbed to attacks that left them like this. I've seen it happen in other people's colonies but it's usually either a poorly laying queen that has left an undersized colony or disease/overt infestation, or a colony left depleted by multiple swarms that has led to the colony unable to defend itself.



I've never seen a strong, healthy, colony unable to defend itself - there's usally something that triggers a rob-out. No doubt there will be someone along shortly to tell me that it does happen - just that I've never seen it.



In the circumstances you are describing they may have been a lost cause anyway ... I'm the biggest softie there is when it comes to my bees but occasionally you do find a colony that really can't help themselves and perhaps need intervention.

Totally fair question.

I think a combination of many things.

Newly mated queen from this year, so part of a queen raising/split that may have been leas than optimal.

She then started laying like the clappers and then kinda slowed wayyy down, like she'd burned out already.

They did ok, treated with apiguard, which may have stymied laying further.

Fed them later with a couple gallons which they took down instantly.

However, the entrance then became rather quiet. Hive very light.

Fed them again, (spilt some syrup! Oops!) but the syrup was then barely touched. Checked them later and no stores in combs, small cluster, and they weren't bothering to go up to get syrup. Wasps seen coming and going.

Also some signs of cbpv... looked today, even smaller 'cluster' and pile of dead bees on the floor.

I think basically I didn't make the best of a bad situation.

I blame my husbandry principly. Lost focus towards the end of the season.

4 remaining hives seem ok... bring on the ivy and the indian summer!

 

[B+.]

Thank you for your experienced answer P, i have seen wax scales all through the season but not this late, i however have different bees now similar to yours so that maybe why.

It has nothing to do with the type of bees Millet. It's a result of a simulated nectar flow (feeding).

 

[Millet]

Totally fair question.

I think a combination of many things.

Newly mated queen from this year, so part of a queen raising/split that may have been leas than optimal.

She then started laying like the clappers and then kinda slowed wayyy down, like she'd burned out already.

They did ok, treated with apiguard, which may have stymied laying further.

Fed them later with a couple gallons which they took down instantly.

However, the entrance then became rather quiet. Hive very light.

Fed them again, (spilt some syrup! Oops!) but the syrup was then barely touched. Checked them later and no stores in combs, small cluster, and they weren't bothering to go up to get syrup. Wasps seen coming and going.

Also some signs of cbpv... looked today, even smaller 'cluster' and pile of dead bees on the floor.

I think basically I didn't make the best of a bad situation.

I blame my husbandry principly. Lost focus towards the end of the season.

4 remaining hives seem ok... bring on the ivy and the indian summer!

I had a hive (Nuc) robbed out to the point of no return earlier in the season another day and they may have starved, i filled three empty brood frames and with my own honey that i extracted last year i filled the three frames with a wooden spatula, i also fed them 2lt of 2:1 in a contact feeder and reduced the entrance to two bee spaces, they recovered pretty quick after that, i know it is late in the year but give it a go you never know.

 

[Millet]

It has nothing to do with the type of bees Millet. It's a result of a simulated nectar flow (feeding).

Are you positive about that P, the angry mongrels i used to have never did it this late in the year and the weather is pretty much the same, i write it down in a book each week/year, everything is the same apart from the bees, these Queens lay twice as much as my old angry Queen which has resulted in twice as many bees which obviously need more space to store more stores to get them all through winter.
One Queen is going into winter on double brood boxes and the other two on brood + half, my old Queen always went into winter on a single deep box and never managed to fill it through out the season also, so that maybe why they never needed to draw new comb because they could never expanded enough.

 

[pargyle]

Totally fair question.

I think a combination of many things.

Newly mated queen from this year, so part of a queen raising/split that may have been leas than optimal.

She then started laying like the clappers and then kinda slowed wayyy down, like she'd burned out already.

They did ok, treated with apiguard, which may have stymied laying further.

Fed them later with a couple gallons which they took down instantly.

However, the entrance then became rather quiet. Hive very light.

Fed them again, (spilt some syrup! Oops!) but the syrup was then barely touched. Checked them later and no stores in combs, small cluster, and they weren't bothering to go up to get syrup. Wasps seen coming and going.

Also some signs of cbpv... looked today, even smaller 'cluster' and pile of dead bees on the floor.

I think basically I didn't make the best of a bad situation.

I blame my husbandry principly. Lost focus towards the end of the season.

4 remaining hives seem ok... bring on the ivy and the indian summer!

An honest answer ... I've noticed a lot of people complaining that open mated queens in the last couple of years have been running out of steam prematurely and I suspect that's probably the nub of what has happened to you - but a useful post as it's that time of year when a lot of people will be looking at robbed colonies and wondering what has happened.

Good luck but sounds a bit like a lost cause ...it happens.