why have they gone?

[Mrs Soup]

checked the feeders on the hives this afternoon and it appears as though one of them has swarmed....

They are a May AS and before we did varoa treatment they were on about 6 frames. Last week we put the super back on and fed with a contact feeder direct onto the top of the frames. We didn't open the brood chamber but my recollection is that there were a similar number of bees as previously.

Today there were almost no bees, alsomst no brood, but some in all stages and no sign of the queen. The bees there were looked as if they were house bees, though there were a few bringing in pollen.

They haven't taken any feed.

The questions are if they have swarmed why? and what to do with the remianing bees?

 

[oliver90owner]

Why they have swarmed, if indeed they have: Becuase of this 'rediculous' autumnal heat-wave? Some bees are of a possibly swarmy nature (yours were as you say, from swarm preparations, as such). They were, presumably, already on their way' with swarm preparations last week when you altered the hive configuration. It may even have been a late supersedure that has turned into a swarm.

The rest of the bees? at this time of the year, unite them soonest.

Question now is whether there is a virgin queen amongst them....

RAB

 

[Mrs Soup]

thanks RAB

That sounds entirely plausible, we haven't checked the brood in a long time, not expecting swarms when there was a reasonable amount of space in the hive. Inexperience showing there maybe? we are 2nd year beekeepers.
We have uncapped larvae in the hive so may have a queen in there, just not our marked one. There is certainly no sign of a QC.

 

[Midland Beek]

If the hive was heaving with stores, a modest flow from the ivy might have brought on the swarming impulse. Either that or it was a supersedure swarm.

 

[Tom Bick]

I would go back and ask my self that when you started the varroa treatment and they were on 6 frames how much brood did they have at that time?

 

[Chris B]

Brood in all stages. No queen cells. Doesn't sound like a swarm left. Yes there have been reports of late swarms but not many.

3 other potential explanations (if you can give more description):
(a) collapsing due to inadequate/late varroa treatment - any bees with deformed wings, or any damaged brood?
(b) failing queen - does the sealed brood look a bit bumpy and are there any drones?
(c) the queen only came back into lay recently, so there is a population gap becoming evident. Some of mine stopped altogether in September.

 

[itma]

...
We have uncapped larvae in the hive so may have a queen in there, just not our marked one. There is certainly no sign of a QC.

...
The rest of the bees? at this time of the year, unite them soonest.

Question now is whether there is a virgin queen amongst them....

So ... what's the suggested plan of action?

/ looking forward rather than back

- Tiny entrance immediately? (Thinking of wasps or robbing of the weak colony)

- Move to a poly nuc, and re-inspect in a fortnight? (Thinking to check if current laying is drone brood and over the fortnight are there any {necessarily new} eggs/uncapped brood? ie is it queenright, even if you can't find her.) The smaller hive ought to make queen finding easier. And if it is OK, then because now a small colony, the poly nuc is set for winter.

- Or is it too late to wait another fortnight?
- What else can be done, if the queen cannot be found? If no disease present, is the best thing to just donate the brood and stores to other neighbouring hive(s) and abandon the few hatched bees?

What should Mrs Soup do now?

 

[oliver90owner]

What should Mrs Soup do now?

Presumably this is aimed at me, in the light of further information?

Still the same advice, from what I can glean from the two posts. If the colony is non-viable, I would unite and be done with it.

There are some gaps in the information, but I am unable to make a prediction on a guess.

Stores - the amount seems like a full brood (or why put a super back on) or was this super already a part-filled one?

Other colonies? There may only be the one, but may be six, I don't know.

almost no bees, alsomst no brood,

That gives me an impresion of almost no bees for the winter. Not sure what anyone else may make of it.

There now appears to be some signs of a queen.

I might put this down to one for the silly season - the queen was being superceded but at some late stage the colony has decided to elope with the old queen (supercedure had taken place some time ago?), but that is pure speculation/a wild guess and would be unusual to say the least. But this is an exceptionally silly autumn... It was an exceptionally(?) silly spring, too.

Eggs would confirm a queen (almost certainly), but without bees I would still unite.

I just do not know enough to advise anything else. If a queen and enough bees, perhaps installing in a nuc could be an option, but a nuc with almost no bees is not a lot better than anything else.

Waiting another fortnight takes us into November (with snow on the ground before then - if the weather men are to be believed). I would not be advising to wait. Don't know whether the poster has a nuc, let alone a polynuc.

RAB

 

[itma]

Yes there's not much info, but, as a learning opportunity (aka 'problem'), I was wondering what the (preferred) options might be.

Why it happened may be an abstract point for a winter moot, but the urgent practical question seems to me to be, what can be done from this position, this late in the year?

Thanks for the input RAB. (It was actually aimed at the whole forum, but I hoped you'd comment!)
Has anyone else got any helpful suggestions for Mrs Soup?

 

[Chris B]

What should Mrs Soup do now?

Take a photo and post it here. A picture paints a thousand words.

 

[Mrs Soup]

Thank you everyone for the measured and considered advice.

We have 3 colonies, so uniting is an option, we also have a nuc box, so that is also a choice.

From the comments posted, my feeling is the decrease in numbers would be due to a laying gap during the varoa treatment and we may not have found the queen when looking last week. Luckily, the weather has been good this week and pollen is still coming in.

There has been bee traffic today, so we will have a look tomorrow and see if there is an increase in numbers. If all looks calm and queenright, then I favour the nuc option, as this queen is one we prefer to keep if we can.

 

[stilllearning]

nosema springs to mind , have a look at the brood , if there are bees with theirheads out and tongues out then its varroa either of these then i personally wouldn't unite them with another hive. could also be a failing queen, plenty of those this year....good luck

 

[Onge]

What should Mrs Soup do now?

Take a photo and post it here. A picture paints a thousand words.

 

[Into the lions den]

Lots of possibilities.

However, on the basis of the scanty information available it sounds like it is just a dud.................they happen. A poor queen that has never really got going, and in the absence of firm info to the contrary there is the possibility it is a drone layer and the old workers have just petered out with the warm autumn weather.

Mrs Soup has other hives. My advice would be to shake it out and store the boxers away for winter after a disease check, and make a fresh split from one of the good ones in spring.

Why not unite? There may be a scraggy queen or a laying worker(s) in there and it is just possible that either of these may dominate in the uniting, and a tiny little thing is not going to add much to a decent hive anyway, possibly only problems.

fwiw........a colony that does not take its feeding is the first sign that there is a problem. Very few colonies that will not take their food ( other than those you have already overfed and have no room) survive the winter, no matter what you do, even fondant directly on top. Other than the obvious reason of being a visibly dud unit, too small or even tiny, the following are the main reasons that all is not well and the syrup not going. ( All based on the assumption we are talking of a colony being fed early enough and that the weather is not too cold.)

1. Queenless
2. Paralysis virus
3. Nosema
4. Drone layer

All the above, and there are others, have the colony in low morale and the imperative to store food is impaired. Any outwardly normal looking colony (at a glance that is, we do not rake into the nests from now until April) that will not take its feed is a likely death irrespective of what we do. Taking your losses now is often a better bet than having some potentially messy dead outs to deal with in March.

We do not try to salvage late season queenless or DL colonies, as the workers are mainly (more likely exclusively) old and do not live to see 'crossover day' in spring, so the net gain is possibly nil, and the risk is there of causing a mishap to the otherwise ok colony you would unite it to.

But then again, we all (myself included) suffer from having kind hearts regarding the bees and even today I waste a lot of time trying to salvage lost causes........just in case it works (which it normally does not).......and because I just do not like to see a genetic line die out and possibly reduce my home based stocks diversity...........and despite the numbers involved they remain after all, the family pets! <G>

 

[oliver90owner]

ITLD,

So you are an 'old softie' at heart!

List, particularly newer beeks,

The temptation to keep them going is far greater when only a very few hives form the total number.

Culling a colony now means it will not be (erroneously) included in the 'winter losses' category. Perhaps losing a colony over the winter can more easily be put down to 'the weather'?

We are a further week towards the winter 'recess'. The need for prompt action is now far greater.

I agree with the fresh split in spring - poor colonies do not build up quickly in spring and likely need reinforcing, from other colonies, to get them going strongly. With few other colonies, that is even more difficut without weakening the others to the point where they are seriously slowed in their devlopment. For a beek with only a couple seasons experience, arranging/encouraging early brooding may not be such an easy task as for a one with more experience (and/or with more colonies).

I know it is easy to say that, but one does need the confidence/experience to make the right decision in spring, too - leave (might just as well culled it in the autumn) or borrow/steal frames/bees from elsewhere; again, it is so much easier when the choice of donor colonies is that much greater.

For the renew latively beginners reading this thread, it may be noted that it started as 'seems to have swarmed' and 'why?' but has now metamorphosed, in the light of other missing information, from a strong colony, requiring the replacement of a super, to a small colony possibly to be installed into a nuc hive and possibly still the original queen.

Mrs Soup has almost admitted to inexperience ('maybe') and I can confirm that is highly likely the case. Us, with a little more (or, for some, a lot more) experience, made all these mistakes before fora were widely available as a 'life-line' to new (and experienced) beeks, and likely had mentors to diagnose and explain any new situations arising and correct any inappropriate actions envisaged.

Often all the little signs and symptoms need weighing up, together, in order to arrive at the correct conclusion. The decision in this case would have been leave alone (still queen-right, laying again and still lots of emerging brood), unite (actually swarmed and too late for a new queen to get mated), 'shake out' (indeterminate situation with the queen) or down-size (possibly as a function of colony make-up and present strength).

Why they are not feeding is, of course, yet another issue.

Regards, RAB

 

[Mrs Soup]

Brood in all stages. No queen cells. Doesn't sound like a swarm left. Yes there have been reports of late swarms but not many.

3 other potential explanations (if you can give more description):
(a) collapsing due to inadequate/late varroa treatment - any bees with deformed wings, or any damaged brood?

Chris B had it spot on here when the OH had a closer look last week.

Rightly or wrongly we decided to attempt to save the colony. There was so much varroa that we certainly couldn't unite. So, as there was only a small amount of brood, we sprayed with an oxalic acid solution, took off the super and dummied them down to 8 frames, as these had either stores or brood.

Anyway, one very mild week on there is an increase in numbers and pollen is coming in. The colony, though small, seems happy. The queen is a good one, which is why we would like to save her. One of our other colonies is still bursting, would it be worth attempting to add bees from here to the smaller one? Or would that put both at risk at this stage in the year?

Rab - quite happy to admit my inexperience. Loving beekeeping, like parenting, there's no right answer and more than one solution.

 

[oliver90owner]

From post #1 before we did varoa treatment they were on about 6 frames....Today there were almost no bees, alsomst no brood

So perhaps we all should know what this varroa treatment actually was? It might be good for some to know what does not work!

So how many bees are there? Will it be viable? Or were initial estimates wildly askew?

Yes, Chris's options were there and I would agree with them and likely have suggested them, but I simply took your description and answered your question (I did say, 'if indeed' they ....)

I am glad you have located the queen - she was pivotal for the viability as a colony - was she marked (presumably she was if you know she is the original queen)?

I am sure we all look forward to hear how this colony progresses. At least you may recognise the difference between a collapsing colony and an empty hive fromm swarming next time.

RAB

 

[BBG]

We have the same problem and definitely would NOT unite - it could take the virus/es/ what ever to the other colony.

As OLy above says progress will be interesting.

 

[Finman]

.
In my cases I met brood frames which were chilled. They did not keep the colony warm when it collapsed.

 

[Hombre]

Chris B had it spot on here when the OH had a closer look last week.

would it be worth attempting to add bees from here to the smaller one? Or would that put both at risk at this stage in the year?

To answer your question Mrs Soup,
If the bees are still flying well, then swapping the position of the weak and a strong colony would add foragers and help balance the situation and give you an infusion of bees into the weaker colony in a safe manner.
= = =
Unrelated >:
Recently I had a weaker colony that was a bit slow in taking syrup from the feeder. I swapped colonies around and the stronger colony became slow at taking their syrup. Common factor, the foragers at the one position/location . . . food for thought!
Both colonies now doing well after a temporary brood break and now up to winter weight.

= = =
When asked twice for a photograph, it's a bit of a clue that a nice clear picture or two would likely help effect a diagnosis.