have you seen this before??

I have 7 nuc's that have queens in them, I raised these queens 2 months ago, we have been in a drought for months and the queens were going goo but all hives shut down, goldenrod just started blooming and now we are getting some rain, all big hives raising brood like crazy and I have open feeders out and top feeders on the nuc's and some of the big hive's for about 1-2 weeks now, the nucs queens aren't laying yet, the bee's are filling the brood cells with syrup and the workers bring in pollenand all nuc's have 2-3 frames of drawn comb still empty in the nuc's, how long yaw think it will take the queens to start laying again, anyone seen this before, I am going to give them another week and if they aren't laying I am re queening these nucs, I could understand if it was one but not all 7. all opinions welcomed......

Wheter shut down is due to drought or having been banked could produce similar delays. I wonder if banked queens frequently show the same problem/delay in starting to lay?

New beekeeper just geting started in queen rearing process.

well I forgot to add this up top but a few weeks ago I check these nuc's and all were empty or almost empty of stores so I started feeding them and thats what I left out, might be the reason they are slow at starting laying again....

sounds like they stopped laying due to lack of resources and if the nucs were starved down to nothing then it may take the queen a while to start laying again. can you still spot a queen in all the nucs? may we assume that at one time you did witness that the queens were laying?

sure they were laying good, just weather been so dry and this years dearth ran about 1 1/2 months longer than normal, yes I have seen all queens in every hive 3 times since started feeding, seen all today, I am thinking it will just take a little while long before they get going again, just wanted to see if anyone has seen this and is that what I am expecting

perhaps I should have prefaced my prior remark with... been there, seen that.

not this year, but the the two prior years were extremely dry here. not only would this happen to nucs but also to full sized hives. if it was me I would continue to feed... perhaps I should suggest that a dribble is better that a pour in regards to maintaining a certain amount of brood rearing. although some times at the front side a pour is good until they have enough rations to have some cushion or insurance from a repetition of the same thing happening...

best to ya'..

Twt,
In my opinion,
they are not bringing in enough pollen yet to start brood rearing. They need additional pollen resourses. I would try feeding them a pollen suppliment in patty form that will get additional pollen resources stored in the cells of the brood area.
An average hive can bring in, store and use +/- 100 lbs of pollen a year. If this is a 5 frame nuc that is still in the neighborhood of 50lbs/year.
With out pollen the brood food glands will shut down and it takes some time for them to restart. The hive will not start rearing brood until it can sustain it with worker jelly.

Thanks
Frank Wyatt

I agree with WG, sounds like stravation. When you feed , don't let them ever run out. Your fooling them into thinking a flow is on. When the food runs out they think the flow is over. It can take awhile for them to built up reserves and start laying again. White wax is always a good indicator of plenty of food.

of course frank could be correct... here in extremely dry years the girls will continue to bring in a bit of pollen but there is generally almost no nectar coming in the front door. certainly a casual check of frames in the nucs (the active hives to a somewhat lesser degree should tell you the same thing) will tell you the extent of stores of nectar and pollen.

good luck...

Hello

I am seeing the same thing in three of my hives they are low in worker population and very low on stores but now i am feeding and treating them for mites which i think caused them to lose alot of young workers but now since i have been treating and feeding they seem to be more active but if they do not build up a little more then i am going to unite with my stronger hives and spilt in the spring to save them.


Tom

Biggest problem I am having with nucs this year is robber bees. I have at least five feral hives in my home location that have developed robbing to a science. Once I have to start feeding they will find any nuc that is a little weak and overwelm it in a couple of days. My entrances are down to 3/8" X 1" with robber screens, but when I go out to the yard in the afternoon I'll see one or two nucs with robbers covering the whole front, clustering at the corners of the lid, and diving at the smallest cracks in the lid trying to get in. When I line out the bees leaving the hive they all head in one of the five directions where the feral bees come from. Usually within a week that nuc will have only a handfull of live bees and the queen left, with dead bees on the bottom screen because there aren't enough workers left to clean house, and of course the feeders will be empty. I've had to resign myself to the fact that only my strongest hives are going to survive this year unless I move all of them to an outyard quickly.

I would like to know what strain of queen and what stock of bees that you nade up these nucs?
The first day of fall is history and the photo period is getting shorter. The sun light is getting less and less as each day passes. The inclination of the sun is not allowing for brighter sun shine and the bees are preparing for winter!
November is onley 15 days away,
You might consider reading about how bees prepare for winter in The Hive and the Honey bee or ABC and XYZ of bee keeping.
Over 30 years ago I ran an experiment with different queen sources. I had used the Homer Park queens and bought a breeder queen from the Parks.
I had 10 nucs from four different breeders. The results were clear! The Park queens excelled and the others would not lay eggs or start a brood nest on a light honey flow plus feeders!
You might as well unite the bees or add sealled brood if possible.
Take your losses in the fall not the winter.
Good luck,

Lucas apiaries

checked nucs today and all have capped brood and larva plus a frame of egg, seem they were just without to long and just took a little longer to get going, they will be fine, I will continue feeding for a few more weeks, all seem to be having good stores.....

Good they are laying again!

The problem as I 'was' about to suggest could be. That given such a long, dry, hot dearth that we have had this year. The queens may have been shut down for quite a while, causing the hive to only have aged bees that were no longer capable of feeding the larva. In that case the bees will just eat the eggs that are laid by the queen. If that were the case then dropping a frame of brood in the hive from another might be just the ticket.

yeah, thats what I think the problem was is that they were just shut down for so long and done eat up their stores, once I started feeding it just took about 5-7 days longer than I would have thought but all is well..