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newbie mistake?

2K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  robherc 
#1 ·
On Sunday (04/29) I hived two packages of bees in my first experience as a brand new beekeeper. The two hives are situated about two feet from each other. I hived the two packages one right after the other.

When I went to check on them yesterday afternoon, I found that the majority of the bees were in the first hive and relatively few, maybe a single frame full, were in the second. The queens of the respective hives were both fine, but the first hive was packed full of bees and I think I even found what I thought were a couple of supersedure cells.

I realized that I probably should have hived the two packages either separated physically or spaced an hour or so apart, as the majority of the bees from the second hive absconded and took up residence in the first hive.

I decided to transfer three full frames from the first, densely populated hive to the second, sparsely-populated hive, in the hope of fortifying the second hive while reducing the possibility of a swarm in the first.

However, after carrying out this action and upon later reflection I now fear that I may have put the queen of the second hive at risk of being killed by the bees transferred from the first hive, since they don't know her. I also fear that the transferred bees may end up battling with the bees that were originally in the second hive and I could suffer the loss of a number of bees.

Did I make a bad situation worse by transferring the three frames full of bees from the stronger to the weaker hive? Or will the fact that the bees were only in their hives for a few days make it possible that the transferred bees will adapt to the second hive's queen and everything will be ok?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Rob
 
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#2 ·
You did indeed make a mistake there but maybe you will get away with it! In the future when you need to equalize, just wait until the bees are actively flying and reverse the hive so the incoming foragers will change colonies and boost the weak one. Do this a couple times a week until they are equal. There is always drifing no matter what you do. Taking care of it properly is the trick.
 
#3 ·
I don't think you'll "lose" either hive due to that mistake...and having done it during the day, while most of the foragers were NOT on those frames may help too... just, like Vance G already said, in the future, "musical hives" is the preferred method for balancing populations..or swapping frames of capped/emerging brood, with few bees attached.
 
#4 ·
Thanks Vance G and robherc for your replies. I do hope robherc is right and that I won't lose either of the hives. I checked on them (from the outside) a bit ago and I didn't see any evidence that a bee battle had taken place (no pile of dead bees in front of the second hive), so hopefully the bees I transferred in to the second hive have adapted without any problems. Of course, I won't know the status of the queen until I open the hive, probably this coming Sunday. I do see more of an equal level of activity at the entrance of both hives now, whereas before the transfer the strong hive had a lot more activity than the weaker hive.

So I gather from Vance G's reply that when foraging bees return to the hive, they locate the hive mainly by site and not by smell (i.e. pheromones). In other words, swapping the hives fools the bees into thinking they are entering their home hive, when in actuality they are not. So when this happens, wouldn't the bee who enters a switched hive immediately think, "Hey, this doesn't smell like my hive. And she doesn't smell like my queen either!"? Or does the "smell" of a hive make much of a difference to a bee?
 
#5 ·
I'm not sure about the queen-dependent pheromones' effect on forager bees. Either they don't generally notice the difference, or they simply don't seem to care. Once a forager bee laden with goodies enters an active hive, they generally stay...another aspect of that, is once a robber bee (forager, but a bit lawless) gets trapped in a "victim" hive overnight, they'll either "convert or die"...and, if still living, will be a functional part of "their" new hive the next day.
 
#6 ·
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for the great information robherc.

So how would this apply to bees that were transferred to another hive via a frame swap, such as I described in my original post? Do you think these bees would care much about the queen-dependent pheromones in the new hive?
 
#8 ·
So how would this apply to bees that were transferred to another hive via a frame swap, such as I described in my original post? Do you think these bees would care much about the queen-dependent pheromones in the new hive?
Normally I don't think you'll have much problem rmdurkin, but my LW hive seemed to get pretty feisty when I added a frame of brood covered in nurse bees...not sure why, but they sounded pretty angry later, after all the other hives had quieted down. I guess the noise could've just been "queenless hive roar," but there didn't seem to be as many bees in there as should've been come next hive inspection :(
 
#7 ·
I read elswhere on this forum that a laying queen smells like a laying queen. Some beekeepers will do a direct swap for requeening by pulling a laying queen from a nuke and swapping with the queen they want to replace. The problems come from purchased/caged queens that have not been laying for a day or more while being shipped. Her smell will be different from an activly laying queen. That is why a cage is used to allow acceptance for the new queen in a cage is better than no other queen in the hive and her smell would dominate by the time she is released.

Laying queens smelling the same also allows for the transfering of frames with bees being moved from hive to hive with no problems as long as the queen from the DONOR hive is not moved too.
 
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