View Full Version : Need Old Timers Help
JOHN HINCHMAN
08-08-2008, 02:09 PM
If You Have A Two Brood Box Hive And The Top Is Full With Honey And Your Bottom Box Had Brood Two Weeks Ago And I Checked Yesterday And They Was Mean Got Stung In Ankel 4 Times But Most Of Brood Gone But There Is Still Alot Of Bees! Would You Think The Queen Is Still In Top Box And Just Will Not Come Down? I Did Pull A Frame Of Open Brood And Place In Bottom Box To See If They Will Start A Queen Cell And I Will Check In 6 Days But This Hive Was An Old Hive That Had Not Been Touched In 10 Years When I Got It, It Might Be The Nature Of These Bees, The Only Thing I Did Was Place In New Box And It Took Off This Summer, I Did A Mite Check And Only Had 4 Mites IN Three Days And The Bees Look Good? Dose Anyone Have Advice In What To Do.
Sarge
08-08-2008, 06:30 PM
Around here we have a dry spell and little to nothing comming in. That would make them cranky by its self.
If you switched them out to a new set of boxes you may have lost the queen. I would let them be for a couple weeks and check back.
JOHN HINCHMAN
08-08-2008, 07:57 PM
No I Have Not Switch Boxes I Just Checked And All The Brood Has Hatched So I Place A Frame Of Open Brood In From Another Hive To See If They Would Start A Queen Cell But I Think She Is In The Top Box And Will Not Come Down To Bottom For Some Reason They Are Very Mean And They Was To Buisy Moving On The Frames To Find Her?
clintonbemrose
08-08-2008, 08:36 PM
Sounds to me as if the hive may be honey bound with no place for the queen to lay. I would remove several full frames from the top box and replace them with comb frames or if you have no pulled comb frames then put in foundation to see if the queen will start on the new frames in 3 to 5 days. If she starts again I would replace the honey frames with comb or foundation frames. If she does not start within the week I would re queen the hive.
Clint
jeff123fish
08-08-2008, 08:51 PM
If you dont have any honey supers on give them some sugar water for a couple of days even if it means that you have to pull out some of the honey they already have. it should calm them down, by making them believe that there is a flow and it might get the queen to start laying again
tecumseh
08-10-2008, 04:57 AM
is there some reason you cannot just move the top box to the bottom position and scratch whatever honey frames that might be capped?
mr bemrose suggested honey bound and that sounds about right to me (bees with little green brood will be quite hostile to any kind of manipulation. this honey bound condition typically also means that the queens laying space is being limited.
Swap the boxes and add a box of comb or foundation on top, they'll pull the honey from below and store it above, or if you added foundation on top they'll start drawing it out to store the honey and free up some room in the broodnest.
JOHN HINCHMAN
08-13-2008, 09:21 AM
Well I Did Swap Boxes And Added Another Deep On Top And They Did Not Start Any Queen Cells On The Frame Of Open Brood I Placed In There A Week Ago So The Queen Must Be There But She Is Still Not Laying, I Hope She Starts Up Pretty Soon, I Read Alot Of Post About How People Just Find There Queen All The Time But I Look And Can Find Them Sometimes But There Is So Many Bees Most Of The Time I Can Not Find Here And I Just Look For The Eggs. So How Do They Realy Do It?