Unproductive Hive

[KIV]

I'm a first year beekeeper. I started the season with two colonies - about a foot apart from each other. One colony I started from a Nuc, and they are doing fantastic. Already 2 full supers for me, and currently working on a third.

My other hive I started from a package, and they just don't want to make me any honey. Their upper brood chamber is filled and capped with honey. The middle 3 frames in the upper deep have a brood pattern. I added a queen excluder and a honey super three weeks ago, and maybe one or two bees will venture up into the super, they they will not draw out the comb or do anything.

What's going on? The hive a foot away already has three supers on.

I was using the black peirco frames in my "unproductive hive." I'm using Duragilt in my hive that is doing well. So I switched some frames. Nothing. I sprayed the foundation with a sugar syrup. Nothing. I heard to turn the queen excluder sideways, or remove it completely.

What else can I try -- or is there something else going on that I should be more concerned about?

[IndianaHoney]

I have more than 30 hives, and my mid streanth hives can produce 75-100lbs. Then the strongest hive that is right next to them produces nothing. That seems to be common. My stongest hive this year was expected to produce 150-200lbs, and was on track in June. Then in July they produced nothing. I suspect that what is happening is not that there is a problem with the hive, but that the foragers are drifting to the outside hives. Sometimes painting the hives different colors may solve the problem.

[tecumseh]

kiv writes:
I added a queen excluder and a honey super three weeks ago, and maybe one or two bees will venture up into the super, they they will not draw out the comb or do anything.

tecumseh replies: well the most obvious difference between the boomer and the dud (well actually I would suggest a fairly normal expanding hive... detail to follow) is that one began from a nuc and one began from a package. in bioliogy (like in many things) small differences in initial condition can make for huge differences down the road. I would suggest that the nuc had a minimum of 45 days head start.

as to using the excluder did you provide an entry abovethe excluder? more importantly are you into some late summer flow?

without a flow no foundation is going to be pulled and a box full of frames and foundation will not encourge 'the girls' to go through an excluder just to loiter around.

[AstroBee]

Remove the excluder until the bees start working the super. Once they have resources stored then you can replace the exculder - making sure your queen is below. Of course if there's no flow, then they are not going to draw wax unless you feed. Also, as mentioned be sure to give them an upper entrance above the excluder.

[alpha6]

Get rid of the excluder.... :rolleyes:

[KIV]

Throughout the season it seemed like the Nuc was performing about a week ahead of the packaged hive. As I said, about 3 weeks ago, the Nuc is still performing and package hive just stopped. So it was obivous that one hive had gotten some sort of head start. But the colonies haven't been keeping the same pace with each other as they had been, which is why I raised the question.

I had no clue that I need to provide an entrance above the excluder. Is this just a 1/4" or so, hole that I can drill in the side of my super? And should I do this for all of my supers, or just the one directly above the exlcuder?

[Ravenseye]

Excluders are not always well liked by the bees. Some beeks have no problem with them. I'm not one of those people. When I put an excluder on, I always put a frame or two of brood above it. If I can't (such as when I add a medium super with foundation above a deep brood box), I try to add a frame or two of comb instead of only foundation. Ideally, you should forget the excluder until the bees are pulling wax and then put it on.

[tecumseh]

kiv writes:
I had no clue that I need to provide an entrance above the excluder. Is this just a 1/4" or so, hole that I can drill in the side of my super? And should I do this for all of my supers, or just the one directly above the exlcuder?

tecumseh: you could modify the bodies with a drill (I would not). I simply use builders shims and create an entrance (approximately a 1/4" slot) just above the excluder. I also have a entrance (notch) incorporated into my migratory style top covers. if you used an inner cover/ outer cover kind of setup then you could also use shims to create an entrance at the top of the stack.

the nucs progress (relative to the package) is based on the momentum (store and number of bees) that was created early in the season when the package was just trying to get a start. in other words the adult population of the package was declining steadily as the first issue of brood was preparing to hatch. if you plotted out the growth (number of workers) curves of each 1) the nuc would look like a hill (sigmoid growth curve) with a fairly constant uphill kind of slope and the package would look more like a wave first with a trough (dip) and followed by a wave (swell).

[dcross]

Hey neighbor!

If you REALLY wanted them to work the super, you could put it between the deeps or remove the upper one entirely to "compress" the hive a little. Both are pretty drastic measures though.

And it's possible you're entering a dearth, mine were showing a little robbing yesterday when I returned the supers.

[Michael Bush]

All bees are created equal. Some just work harder. :)