Disappointing

[Chef Isaac]

I decided to go with 28 packages this year. 20 on large cell and 8 on small cell.

Went out to one of my yards about two weeks ago and found that 4 of the packages had small populations. A red flag popped up and I looked inside. Four drone layers. Went and got 4 queens at $24 a pop plus gas and time. Requeened all 4. Went back yesterday to find all four of them were drone layers. now... population was low low low.

So... a package of costs $70. Total loss in packages= $280. Loss in extra queens= $100. Grand total of a loss= $380.

this is discouraging when trying to get your numbers up.

[Swobee]

I came to the firm conclusion that nucs are a much better investment than packages for expanding. Others will say to make your own queens & splits, but I'm not there yet. Maybe next year I can say that I do my own completely.

[deantn]

Seems to me I'd be going back to who ever sold me the packages and queens and getting money back. Pictures alway help when doing it though.
Good luck

[deknow]

...whenever i'm disapointed in a product or service, i try to figure out upfront what i want. the key here is, how confident are you that the original supplier can do what you want...and if not, can someone else, and what is it worth to you.

myself, i have little faith in "factory queens" in general. last year, when starting a bunch of packages, i was happy to see most of them supercede quickly. the few that had under (or non) performing queens, i either gave them a frame of brood to raise their own, or, i combined them with stronger hives. i certainly could have "demanded" replacement queens, but in the end, i don't want those queens, i want locally mated queens. in my own calculations, i was better off with fewer stronger hives than trying to push along more weak ones.

packages are not ideal, and one should not expect 100% success with them. i'd take the losses, and simply combine with stronger hives. you still might be able to make some splits if they are strong enough.

deknow

[mushgirl]

This might be a dumb question, but being new to this here goes. What is a drone layer? The bee package I just got seems to have a lot of drones. I have not peeked in lately, but before I moved them, there seemed to be a lot of activity, females bringing in pollen and such. I was going to wait a few days before peeking in as I just moved them yesterday. What should I look for? How would I know there's a problem with a drone layer?

[Dan Williamson]

Which is why I offer nucs with queens that have excellent brood patterns. I ordered queens and a couple turned out to be drone layers as well. But because I had the opportunity to evaluate and select only the best... that is what my customers get.

I personally don't understand the package route... but everyone has their own reasons.

[Chef Isaac]

I have thought hard about packages versus nucs. The one thing that was a concern regarding buying nucs is that you just do not know what is looming inside the wax from the frames. That was my major concern with bringing in nucs.

I would love to go back to the place that I bought the packages from. They are the middle man and they say once they are in the hive, they do not take any responability past that point.

I shook all packages in nucs and decided to put another nuc box on top and then split them later in the season.

It is just frusterating.

[EKW]

Chef- I can certainly understand your frustration, but can't figure out why you have had such poor results with package bees. I agree with you that packages are preferable to nucs from a disease standpoint. We have some new beekeepers in our local association and I recommended to everyone that they purchase packages instead of nucs. Then we found out that a long time local beekeeper would be selling nucs and decided to purchase 2 of them for our demonstration apiary so that we could compare them to the package bees. Well, before we even got the nucs we found out that the producer has had AFB in recent years and does not burn his equipment. I changed my mind about getting the nucs and cancelled the order. I have never had AFB before and don't want it. If my bees bring it home, then they bring it home, and I will have to deal with it, but I don't want to risk bringing it in on someone else's old frames.

I have not purchased a lot of packages. I started my first few hives with packages and then built up my hive count over the next few years. I think I bought 5 more packages the third year, but that was it- eventually I had 80 hives. I caught a few swarms, but most of the increase came from splitting my existing hives and buying or raising queens.

How are you managing your packages? Are you installing them on new foundation? Drawn comb? Feeding a lite syrup? HFCS? Do you provide pollen patties? Are you treating for nosema? You mentioned that 4 of the packages seemed weak- how did the other 24 look?

Do you know who the package producer was? We bought our packages from Man Lake in Minnesota and they look pretty good. One of our club members lost a queen when he did his install and I gave him a queen from one of our hives. I thought I could get a new queen from Mann Lake but they still had people who hadn't picked up their packages and wanted to hang on to their extra queens until they were sure everyone got live queens with their packages. I then called the package producer in California, thinking that maybe I could get some queens directly from him, faster. When I told them that I needed queens they were very concerned that there was a problem with the queens they had sent out and were ready to replace any bad ones at their expense. I assured them that the fault was ours for losing the queen. I wound up not getting any because the cost, with shipping, was more than I was willing to spend. I decided to pull a frame of brood from one of the other packages which I started on drawn comb and frames of honey from last year- I figured they could spare one frame of eggs/brood and the queenless hive is raising a queen now. However, I discovered some queen cells in one of the 7 hives yesterday and I guess the bees are superceding. Not sure why because the queen they have is laying in a nice pattern, but I haven't looked at the hive very closely yet.

It seems odd that you had 4 bad queens and replaced them with 4 more bad queens. Makes me wonder if something else is going on in those 4 hives. Did you buy the replacement queens from the same source that the original 4 queens came from? Or from someone else?

I hope someone can help you figure out what the problem is so you can get on track with your increase. And, I hope you'll keep us posted as to your progress. God luck.

[riverrat]

The one thing that was a concern regarding buying nucs is that you just do not know what is looming inside the wax from the frames. That was my major concern with bringing in nucs.

.

Talk with who you are buying th nucs they will tell you what they are using on there hives if the are reputable. If you are concerned about what is in the wax another option would be to cull out the old frames has the draw out new comb. This will be slow but still faster than trying to make a package go.

[BigDaddyDS]

Unfortunately, Chef isn't alone in his problem.

I've been hearing a lot of reports about people receiving poorly mated queens this year. And a lot of the problem is with the producers facing such high demand for queens (and packages/nucs) so early in the season, a lot of times the queens are rushed in their mating flights before they're bottled up and shipped. Some producers (while speaking in hushed tones) are telling stories about producing queens before there's an adequate supply of drones to mate with her.

But people still demand their bees in the spring! (And, I was no different...)

To me, nucs are the way to go. That way you can inspect the brood pattern and determine for yourself the laying quality of the queen. With a package, you're buying a pig in a poke. She might be an all star, but she might also be a drone layer. Heck, in a package, she might not even be accepted by the rest of bees! You've got no idea.

That's why I'm raising my own from now on. And, that's also why I encourage FALL requeening from a breeder who tests brood pattern and breeds for local and hygenic traits. (At least that's what I'm trying to accomplish...)

Maybe raising your own queens is something YOU'D like to try, Chef?

DS

[Keith Jarrett]

this is discouraging when trying to get your numbers up.

That is discouraging at any time, big or tall, fat or small.

[Brent Bean]

Mushgirl:

A Drone layer is a queen that is poorly mated or at the end of her reproductive lifespan, and starts laying mostly or all unfertilized eggs. Which will produce only drones. You could be seeing drones that were shaken into your packages when the supplier was making your package, it is very normal to see drones in you package.
When you do you inspection if you see lots of drone cell in areas that worker brood should be then you may have a problem. But don’t worry about this I have never had the misfortune that Chef has experienced with package bees. The only problem I have had is the occasional dead queen.

Chef:
High demand for package or not sounds like your supplier didn’t ensure your queens were mated I would be fuming. And would be demanding recompense or I would be scratching them off my supplier list.

[drobbins]

I sent mushgirl a PM to answer her question and I made a mistake in terminology
what I described to her is a laying worker
Brent is giving the correct description of a drone layer
similar problem, two different causes
gotta get the lingo right:)

Dave

[Chef Isaac]

I have been raising my own queens for the last two years and still learning. I didnt want to buy nucs cause the thought of bringing in other frames from other operations kinda scared me a little. But the upside to buying nucs is that one gets to see the brood pattern which is nice.

[Michael Bush]

>this is discouraging when trying to get your numbers up.

I bought some packages this spring trying to get the numbers up for queen rearing, and had similar results. The bees were healthy, the packages were heavy with bees. The queens were very disappointing. Several drone layers, several that the bees moved next door, obviously preferring that queen. All in all, not half of them did that well. The ones that did do well are booming. I wish I could raise queens in April...