Honey bound

[Swobee]

Under good circumstances - warm/hot weather, good bloom structure, etc. about how long should it take for a honey bound colony to recover and see good laying characteristics? I had a couple of hives in a difficult to get to area. With recent rains, the roads have been impassible but I finally got to inspect after more than three weeks. Last time there, I found excellent brood pattern and lots of larva that has been replaced with most every frame in the supers and brood chambers filled with nectar and little signs of larva or eggs. Both hives are in this condition, with great clover blooming happening along with other wild flowers. I gave them each more supers for room, but it was way too late to keep their good status quo and things got out of hand for them.

This is a problem I've not had before. Usually I give them maybe too much room- this time they were in desperate need of more space to work and live in. Next year, I need to find an alternate location or better roadway in/out.

[Fuzzy]

Can't be sure, but the description sounds like a queenless hive. They just fill the brood box with nectar.

[mike762]

I'll give you my recent experience; take it FWIW. I ordered a 3# package of Russians with marked and clipped queen, and installed them in the usual way. After 5 days, checked on the queen cage and she had been released. Closed everything back up and checked about 4 days later for her or signs of her. No joy. Same the next week, and the next. The colony was drawing out the center 5 frames and filling them with pollen and nectar. In the 3d week they were in a circular pattern with capped honey/nectar on the perimeter, and pollen inside of that. No eggs, no larva and no capped brood. I ordered another queen and she arrived and was installed. After 4 days checked and she had been released. 4 days later, no changes. This week I checked and I had larva and capped brood in a nice tight pattern in the center on two frames. Hopefully, everything will progress and turn out normally.

[honeyshack]

Swobee, I am in the same predictament. Some of the hives have good queens and some requeened themselves after i requeened them after making splits.

Talked to our Ag guy who specializes in bees. With the cold cold spring, wet, just plain crazy weather, the bees did not know if they were coming or going. They balled new queens, tossed out old ones, or kept their queen and on the few days they could fly, just packed themselves in solid. With the yukky weather, some of the queens were stopping and starting and stoping and starting laying many times, really messed up the cycles. Other queens were able to pace themselves and did well. And all the hives were aggitated. Did not matter if they were queen right or not. They were jittery, slightly aggressive, but not too bad, and loud. It was a real mixed bag. We can thank the weather for the lovely turn of events. I think is it is going to take a few weeks for them to settle down and get restarted again. Especially since we went from cloud, rain, near freezing temps one week, and 85-100 something the next week.

In one yard, i have two hives that i think might have requeened themselves after putting in a new queen may 24th. Checked 10 days ago and their were eggs just starting but now, No eggs, few brood, no larva, and we found a virgin tonight....honey bound. I am going to wait a few days and split the hive cause they are nuts on bees...i think. the down side is they are in a dearth right now and the clover is just starting so...any how i have some spare queens.
In the same yard, honey bound, found the queen, marked and did not swarm, sproatic eggs and larva and brood. Some of these hives i split, some of them i removed honey and added empty frames. I left them feed since we are in a dearth and hope the queen will start again...soon.

[Swobee]

Wel, I have to admit I didn't see the queens in these hives. Too many thousands of bees in them to ID the queen quickly. Each hive consisted of three deeps full of 1000's of bees and tons of nectar. Maybe I better do a more thorough inspection and try to locate the queens, since there's only two hives in this spot. I could order a queen or two, install them and see what happens. It would be a shame to lose these hives with the numbers of bees in them and the production they've got going on now.

I've usually gone with the M.O. of adding two deeps early on over the two over-wintered brood deeps. But I was short of hive bodies when placing these at their location, so just added one super with the intent of doing more shortly afterward. Thanks, you gave me concern to do a deep search soon.

[Fuzzy]

When doing the inspection, if you find abundant capped brood or larva then you will almost certainly have a queen. Your earlier description sounded like you had little or none of either.

Good luck on the hunt -- Fuzzy

[IABeeMan]

If you have hives other than these 2 add a frame of eggs from a diff hive in each and see if they start queen cells. If they start building queen cells then they are queenless. You will be able to see the start of queen cells in just a couple days.

[Zane]

Or get a helicopter Greg?lol
If you seperate your honey bound deeps you should find your queen easier. Find out where they are fanning or grouping up the most then look there first. Might save some time and sweat!!!this time of year. When you find her,
add some brood to help w/ the slack time. I bet they come back around.

[Swobee]

Hey, Zane I like the chopper idea! Sandy has an uncle who used to have one. You passing this way any time soon? The closest we'll be anytime soon to you is the Topeka area this weekend. We're visiting an aunt going through her second bout with breast cancer. Sandy's deceased cousin and this aunt (both breast cancer victims) are two of the reasons we support the Komen Foundation. We sell honey each October specifically for sending the receipts to their cause. That's why I was looking for pink containers and/or caps earlier. Found the caps and will buy some along with a pink ribbon on the bee breast cancer fund containers. If customers want to make additional contributions to this cancer research, we gladly accept and submit it in their names to Komen.

I suppose I could have dropped the Blazer into low-4WD and plowed my way to the hives sooner. But being a good neighbor we don't need to catch hell for tearing up a private field road and lose an other wise good location.

There are a number of other hives that I can steal frames from and may just do that this weekend. It sure can't hurt anything. If they need a queen they'll make one and if not, they'll have some offspring to get things rolling again now that they have some room in the hives again.

I made a number of late season walk a way splits from frames with fresh eggs last year successfully. In fact, some of them overwintered better than some of my more 'experienced' hives did last season. I was planning on some queen replacement anyway later this summer and maybe there's just no time like the present. I need to act soon because if they are actually missing their queens the left over bees will perish soon and it will be too late to play catch up. Man, this year has been a mixed bag of successes and flops. Unfortunately, I get credit for more flops than successes- if the bees make it this year, it won't so much because of me, but in spite of me.

[Wee3Bees]

I didn't check to see how far north you are, but if this is the start of your major flow for the year it may just mean that they ran out of room (and is normal for a queenright colony). You may just need to add some supers, wait a few days, then check for eggs.

Your queen may just not have anywhere to lay (and this can lead to swarming, but not always). It happens to most of us at the beginning of the honey flow unless one has done Walt Wright's checkerboarding technique. It typically isn't even noticed by most beekeepers unless they go through their hives very often and thoroughly (down into the brood chamber).

Just my 2 cents worth...

[Swobee]

Wee3Bees-

Your description is what I hope the situation is. The recent flow has been incredible, as clover started in full swing blooming-wise during the times I couldn't inspect these hives. My concern was finding little to no brood, yet 1000's of bees. Having lost more than one 'booming' hive in past seasons tells me I need to be concerned. The recent rains should help the clover bloom for a few weeks to come. Some clover patches are starting to lose bloom while other are just getting into full swing around here. Either way, I gave them all extra supers and this weekend will search for queens thoroughly and prepare to add egg/brood frames if needed. Thanks for the replies.

[Zane]

Greg I'll bee close to Topeka on Monday mid-day. Wife goes for a MRI on her back again:pinch: and will bee picking blueberries earlier in the day. Call if around and have some time.
We have been pretty muddy here just like last year also so I understand the access issue. I have a mean but productive hive out in a field that is always muddy getting to. Might have to wait for a freeze before I get stores!!!!
Good luck w/ your girls.

[Oberlinmom]

I had the same problem. This is my first year so I asked everyone for ideas. James Tew recommended I take three to four frames from the middle of my two deeps, replace them with empty frames. Put the full frames into a third deep stack it on top and then super it as well. I had only a few cells with eggs and thought my queen was gone. There were no queen cells so I thought maybe she had died and they hadn't noticed yet. Anyway, as I shifted things around, there she was in the bottom deep where the few eggs were. Now she'll have more room. Maybe they'll calm down a bit too, that was not a happy hive.
Another idea I was given was to take the frames that were mostly capped honey, there were several, and extract them. Then return the frames to the hive. Again giving her royal highness more space to lay eggs.
Since I'd already gone with the third deep I'm going to wait and see what happens. If you already do three deeps, I'm too short to have a fourth, I'd try the extracting method.