advice

[Lost In Bees]

I started four hives of small cell italians from packages in mid april. I started them on permacomb and they started off well considering the cold weather. I just done an inspection and the queen has no "nest" anywhere. There are eggs and capped cells, but they are not in one place. The bees are putting honey and polen in the cells between the eggs. Do I need to replace these four queens or is it they dont like the permacomb to lay in and are doing the bare minimum. All packages came from the same place. All four hives have the same "problem".

[mark williams]

Do away with the plastic,JMO, :D

[Konrad]

Not a expert, my first year!
How is the population of bees??
If low, then I would consider do something about it.
I hived my two packages on pierco and all looks good.
Konrad

[Robert Hawkins]

HI Lost, You should probably check carefully that there is only one egg per cell. It sounds okay though. I'll bet the cells you saw had workers already hatch. And the queen is laying elsewhere. That just looks messy. They know what's where.

After 1 1/2 months are you in two deeps each? Are they both full? Should you maybe add a honey super? Italians have a reputation for fast buildups. Also for good brood patterns. That's why this is a hard one to figure.

Hawk

[Lost In Bees]

Permacomb is all medium size. they are in three medium boxes. Yes they did have a hatch already, you can tell by looking at the combs. Around the cells that have hatched they are putting honey. The population of bees seem to be o.k. I quess I was expecting to see more of a brood "nest" Maybe I gave them too much room too fast.

[Michael Bush]

Sometimes they start filling the brood area with nectar/honey/syrup. It may not be that the queen isn't laying, but that they are filling it up. You may have not given them enough room fast enough. If the space is pretty much full of bees then you didn't give them too much room.

[Robert Hawkins]

Are you boxes full? If so it may be time to give them honey supers to put the honey in. If they don't have any place designated don't blame them for using what they have.

Hawk