Loonerone
06-25-2009, 02:32 PM
One of our hives is not doing well and we would like your help assessing the degree of problem. We got two 5 frame nucs on May 16. We inspected both hives today – one has all 20 frames drawn and many frames filled with honey and brood (we only looked in the top super on this one). We have been feeding both hives 1:1 through the rain thinking it would take awhile for the second 10 frames to be drawn but this hive, which had many more bees when it arrived, has flourished. We added a honey super today. Of course we are concerned that much of the honey drawn in the deeps is sugar water, though the bees have been busy foraging throughout the rainy days.
The second hive had far fewer bees when it arrived. About 10 days ago it had 8 and a half frames drawn with comb, so we added the second deep. Today we inspected it and it is a mess. We are concerned and perplexed. This hive has many more drone and drone comb and has not finished drawing comb in the first deep, but has drawn comb (only in the middle of the frame) on 6 of the frames in the second deep. The other frames have no comb drawn. What was drawn in the middle looked to be mostly honey and pollen with some brood but spotty.
When we inspected the first deep we found the mess. We scraped off huge amounts of comb on the bottom of four frames - it was filled with fat white larvae – it looked to us like the photos of supercedure cells. Some of it looked like drone comb, but we sure saw some peanut shaped comb in at least 5 places on the bottom of the frame. We scraped all that off. We also saw two places that looked like queen cells (peanut shaped, but up high). The brood pattern is terrible except on one frame that was in the original nuc. This hive still has far fewer bees than the first, and many more drone, as I said above. We saw no eggs or larvae other than the big fat stuff in the comb we scraped off.
Any guidance on this second hive would be most welcomed. We stopped feeding the strong hive, but are keeping the 1:1 on the weaker hive (though concerned about robbing).
Is this a swarm situation since too little comb is drawn? Is the hive too small to draw comb? Queenless? Should we take drawn comb from the stong hive and exchange it with the weak? Should we take brood from the strong hive and add it to the weak?
thank you!
The second hive had far fewer bees when it arrived. About 10 days ago it had 8 and a half frames drawn with comb, so we added the second deep. Today we inspected it and it is a mess. We are concerned and perplexed. This hive has many more drone and drone comb and has not finished drawing comb in the first deep, but has drawn comb (only in the middle of the frame) on 6 of the frames in the second deep. The other frames have no comb drawn. What was drawn in the middle looked to be mostly honey and pollen with some brood but spotty.
When we inspected the first deep we found the mess. We scraped off huge amounts of comb on the bottom of four frames - it was filled with fat white larvae – it looked to us like the photos of supercedure cells. Some of it looked like drone comb, but we sure saw some peanut shaped comb in at least 5 places on the bottom of the frame. We scraped all that off. We also saw two places that looked like queen cells (peanut shaped, but up high). The brood pattern is terrible except on one frame that was in the original nuc. This hive still has far fewer bees than the first, and many more drone, as I said above. We saw no eggs or larvae other than the big fat stuff in the comb we scraped off.
Any guidance on this second hive would be most welcomed. We stopped feeding the strong hive, but are keeping the 1:1 on the weaker hive (though concerned about robbing).
Is this a swarm situation since too little comb is drawn? Is the hive too small to draw comb? Queenless? Should we take drawn comb from the stong hive and exchange it with the weak? Should we take brood from the strong hive and add it to the weak?
thank you!