September Brood

[newbee 101]

I was under the impression that they cut back the brood production this time of the year. I was suprised to find this.
http://www.acmepainting.com/septbrood.jpg
http://www.acmepainting.com/septbrood2.jpg

[Michael Bush]

Some of mine have cut back a lot. Some are rearing brood like crazy.

[Parke County Queen]

My bees don't know it is Sept. They are raising brood like gangbusters.

[Hillside]

Your septbrood2.jpg is amazing. I have often seen bees of different colors in my hives, but I have never seen them so seperated in to two groups. Was this a combined hive maybe? If it's bees from two different hives it might make more sense.

[Jeffrey Todd]

Hillside, I think the reason for the color difference is that part of the frame is in sunlight, and the other part in shadow.

[rache]

this is a representative brood frame from my upper deep, taken two days ago.

http://x61.xanga.com/786a86622303576843789/w52013302.jpg

[iddee]

This is a cut-out I did last Saturday.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j226/Iddee/TRAP%20OUTS/bees203.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j226/Iddee/TRAP%20OUTS/bees202.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j226/Iddee/TRAP%20OUTS/bees209.jpg

[ September 10, 2006, 10:17 AM: Message edited by: iddee ]

[newbee 101]

Hillside, Jeff is right, it is the light playing tricks. These bees & brood are from a swarm cell Queen.

[naturebee]

--this is a representative brood frame from my upper deep, taken two days ago.--(rache)

I am seeing this amount of brood being reared in my upper deeps also.
But for this time of year, although the brood pattern is impressive, what I am seeing in my hives and on your frames ‘may’ be a bit troubling and I’ll explain why.

Rache:
http://x61.xanga.com/786a86622303576843789/w52013302.jpg

Newbee:
http://www.acmepainting.com/septbrood2.jpg

When I look at these two frames in the links above, I see that there is NO honey cap. In fact, only a very meager amount of capped honey and uncapped nectar exists in Rache’s pic. At this time the colonies (as suggested by the lack of a honey cap, and allot of brood being situated in the upper deeps) seem to be consuming stores and most incoming nectar for brood rearing. I believe that you are seeing large brood patterns as a direct result of ‘lack of stores and incoming nectar’ which this inflow of nectar and honey cap normally would restrict the brood pattern sizes in the upper deep at this time of year.

So what one normally would consider a good sign IE “wanting to see in your colonies” such as large brood patterns, can be suggestive of other possible problems when taken into consideration with other things you “should ALSO be wanting to see in your colonies” at this time of year.

Newbees’ frame only has no capped stores and only a meager amount of uncapped stores (as indicated by some bees at the corners with their heads in the cells).

IF these frames are from the top deep, and IF there are many more like this in the upper deep, this might indicate that the nest has remained OR moved up into the second deep by the consumption of stores to rear brood as a result of the dearth.

An assessment should be made of colony weights. And if light on stores, it might be advisable to forgo the fall surplus and let the bees keep it all.

On the bad side, if a colony is supered at this time without a honey cap, it is more likely that either the queen will move up and lay in the supers, OR they will want to replace the missing honey cap by filling the supers which might hamper the colonies focus of efforts to place stores in the broodnest for wintering by slowing the ‘pushing down effect’ on the broodnest caused by incoming nectar being placed in the top portions of the broodnest as bees hatch out.

On the bright side, the colonies seem to be in pre fall and fall buildup stages, and this extra available space will permit the colony to build a populous work force needed for fall surplus and winter survival. This massive amount of brood being raised will make it more likely that if given a strong fall flow, the bees will be able to collect adequate winter stores. All we need now is a good fall flow.

[ September 10, 2006, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Pcolar ]

[newbee 101]

Excellent observation on my photo. This hive is light on stores in the hive bodies. Honey in the supers though. I plan on weighing the hives and feeding where needed. This hive swarmed in early May. Could be the reason for being so light.

[Hillside]

"light playing tricks"

And these old eyes are getting easier and easier to trick.

[naturebee]

Hi newbee,

I would agree, that a colony that swarmed in May, given the circumstances that existed with the effects of the weather on the flow in the north east, would have difficulty in capitalizing on the available forage due to the lower population caused by swarming. Much of what is collected during the later half of the early flow is stored in the top deep and sometimes used by the bees to aid in pre fall buildup. Due to foraging conditions that occurred during the early flow, the bees may not have been able to collect sufficient reserves.

This honey in the supers, was it from what the bees collected during the early flow up until the beginning of July? IF so, this would not be associated with the condition that exists in the colony today, but instead reflects the capabilities and condition of the colony that existed earlier in the year.

Just keep an eye on them and watch for robbing.

Best Wishes.

[rache]

thanks for the observations. at this stage of the game - first year, only hive (package hived in may) - i'm still working through what i should be seeing vs. what i am seeing. i believe that brood frame was in the fourth position in the upper deep. this frame was in the first position, upper:

http://xec.xanga.com/a79a7465d773076843804/w52013312.jpg

the lower deep contains a good deal of pollen at least one complete frame, plus decent-sized margins on the brood frames. there's a lot of open brood in the bottom, confined to somewhat smaller areas on the frames (not straight to the bottom cells, like in that photo above.)

i have a super on now, which they're mostly using for hanging out; maybe half of the frames have partially-drawn comb. i just ordered slatted racks, and when they arrive, i'm going to install one and remove the super, and begin feeding. weekly inspections show that they're bringing in nectar from somewhere, and LOTS of pollen, but i want to make sure to get them full up on syrup for winter.

[ September 10, 2006, 05:29 PM: Message edited by: rache ]

[naturebee]

Hello Rache,

I've been inspecting some beehives for neighboring beekeepers because of their concerns why the bees aren’t producing. I checked their colonies that consisted of package bees bought this season, and I am seeing a similar situation as seen in your package bees. I would expect in a package colony at this time to have at least 2 frames on each end of the top deep to be capped honey, and the frames in the center of the top deep to be about ½ full of capped stores and maybe some brood at the bottom of these frames also.

I would recommend to remove the supers and keep the lid on flat and do not tilt it ‘more than a bee space’. Maybe 1/8 spacer between the roof and inner cover will do if ventilation is needed to prevent robber from gaining access. When you begin to feed, you may want to keep an eye out for robbing and possibly reduce the entrance to one half.

I’m seeing allot of robbing going on in the area, but strangely enough, I see no evidence of robbing occurring in my hives just yet, and I still have the entrances wide open for now. The robbing I have identified in my neighbors colonies seems to be occurring as a result of empty supers left on and tilted roof which gives robbers easy access due to the lesser numbers of guards that usually patrol empty comb. If there are stores in the super, there would be more guards there to protect it. But with empty comb, the colony assumes it doesn’t need that many guards in the supers and robbers can slip inside the colony starting a frenzy.

The shortage of nectar seems to have provided some benefit in allowing colonies to brood up heavily which aids in the ability of a colony to weather the mite pressure also occurring at this time. The added benefit is that the bigger work force should enable the colonies to collect sufficient fall stores for winter, providing the weather cooperates.

Best Wishes

[rache]

thanks for the insights, joe. i do have my lid popped pretty high because of the 100+ temps we had several weeks ago, and i've just left it alone since then. i've never noticed any activity around the lid, excpet for the occasional ant or fly. what does robbing look like, exactly? lots of robber bees causing a ruckus, or is it something you only see the results of (decreased/no stores?)

[Ravenseye]

I have nearly exactly the same situation with my bees that were hived from a package in late May. No time to catch the spring flow especially with the 2 weeks of non-stop rain we had here in the Northeast. I started feeding 2:1 about a week ago and they are using it up fast. My frames have very little capped honey and lots and lots of brood. I tried an entrance feeder at first and had robbing within a couple of hours. After stopping that, I went to a hivetop feeder with very good results.

Robbing looks like a giant fight. Bees wrestling on the landing board...bees pushing in and getting pushed out of the entrance...bees on the ground....LOTS of bees in the air. It is quite the sight. At first, I thought maybe it was congestion until I looked close. I immediately pulled the entrance feeder and blocked the entrance down to a small hole. Later, there WAS congestion but I left it closed down for a couple of days before I got brave again.

JAW

[ September 11, 2006, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Ravenseye ]

[SilverFox]

:confused: I wounder, can you get away with taking brood from a hive going 'gang buster' with brood and, at this time of year, put it in a weaker hive to help them build up for winter??? :confused:

[naturebee]

--what does robbing look like, exactly?--(Rache)

Robbing is a form of cleptoparasitism (literally, parasitism by theft) a form of feeding where one animal takes prey from another that has caught, killed, or otherwise prepared it.
The process is simple and efficient: scouts enter a foreign colony and identify it as a highly rewarding food source. They then recruit foragers of their home colony to the target colony, which, if insufficiently defended, will be completely depleted of its resources.

Early indications of robbing might be seeing bees hovering around the back and sides of the colony and some fighting near the front entrance which is usually a clear indication that robbers may be gaining access. This can indicate that the colonies defenses are being tested by scouts and some fighting is occurring by guards defending against the intruders. This can usually be stopped by reducing the entrance just a bit. But robbing escalate to a more severe situation where the colony is over run with robbers from other colonies depleting all the stores. With severe robbing, robbers will kill many bees and may even kill the queen in the process.

Remember that for robbing to occur, the scouts must enter the colony, identify it as a highly rewarding food source and recruit foragers back at their nest to the target colony. This is done by conveying the general location and quality of the food source. So robbers ‘at first’ know where the food source is, BUT do not necessarily know where the entrance is located and must find it by smell. This is why with robbing in progress you will see bees piled up or along the cracks between hivebodies, lids and other hive parts where the odor of honey is prevalent. You might see hovering around the sides of the hive and entering thru the hive top or other entrances that your bees do not normally use, you will also see much fighting at the entrance and fresh dead bees on the ground.

Later on as robbing progresses and the colonies defenses collapse, the robbing bees will tend to shift to using the front entrance. This entrance activity can often fool a beekeeper and resemble activity from that of a thriving colony, but there are ques that will indicate something is wrong. There will be dead bees at the entrance, and you might notice wax cappings on the floor inside the hive. At this stage of robbing, the robbers have made so many trips back to the hive that they are familiar with the location and often the exiting bees will not make the orientation spiral, but will zip straight from the colony to it’s home nest.

[ September 11, 2006, 04:52 PM: Message edited by: Pcolar ]

[CWBees]

I just finished checking all my hives and many frames are very similar Rache's frames. I also noticed in one hive that I thought to be the strongest that there was almost no honey in the bottom deep. On this particular hive I had left the entrance wide open. I think the hive has been getting robbed and the most easily robbed frames were in the bottom super. I have reduced the entrance to this hive to only a small opening to try and stop any robbing in the future.

[CWBees]

Pcolar thanks for the info on robbing. I never knew you could look for an orientation spiral when a bee leaves the hive.

[ September 11, 2006, 06:10 PM: Message edited by: CWBees ]

[rache]

great info. so far, i haven't seen anything like what you describe; the bottom entrance is wide open, and the top has the equivalent of a reduced entrance under the outer cover, but i've never seen any bee using it. the bottom entrance is has never shown any sign of struggle, other than the occasional bumblebee or wasp that comes sniffing around, but the girls always handle it efficiently. and i've never seen more than one or two bees dead in front of the hive. i'll certainly keep a close eye on things, though.

[Michael Bush]

Watch foraging bees coming and going from a hive. They are calm and methodical. Watch bees that are robbing. They are frenzied and excited.