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I just killed both my queens, am I crazy?

7K views 40 replies 14 participants last post by  mchrist152 
#1 ·
I have 2 top bar hives based on Les Crowder's design. I populated both just this year, one with a swarm and one with a nuc (yes, I had to trim the nuc langstroth frames to fit in my top bar but that will have to be the topic of another thread). Anyway, in my attempts to follow Mel Disselkoen's advice I killed both queens in both colonies (i know, he recommends doing it on July 1st but I've got too much other stuff going on tomorrow so I did it today). It wasn't easy especially since the queen from the swarm was performing well. The one from the nuc didn't have a great laying pattern so that wasn't as difficult. I also notched some comb on bars that had 3 day old larva. This is suppose to stimulate the bees to create queen cells there. I guess now I need to check in a week to make sure queen cells have been made and capped. If everything goes as planned, I will split the swarm hive because it appears to be the stronger hive while letting the other just recreate a queen and hopefully carry one.

I guess my real question is not "am I crazy" (I already know I am). I'm really wondering if anybody else has done this sort of thing and what the results were?

Also, I'm trying this because I lost 2 hives last year from mites and this brood break is supposed to be a lot harder on the mites than the bees. In addition, I will be getting, hopefully, local genetics which should result in bees better adapted to my area. Trying to be treatment free last year failed miserably so I'm also considering treating the hive with oxalic acid on July 25th. There should be no capped brood in the hives at this time so it seems like a great opportunity to treat only once and get all the mites.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
 
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#36 ·
Thanks trishbookworm,

I've basically combined hive 1 (the queen right hive) with hive 3 which definitely did not have a queen. I had a barrier separating them (since I don't have any newspaper) but have since removed it and they appear to be getting along fine.

I've also combined hive 2 and the nuc. I think the nuc has a mated queen but not sure. I will have to watch this one carefully. The combine seems to have worked well as I'm seeing no fighting or contention of any kind. But is the queen mated well, that is the question I need to answer.

Regarding hive 4 (the potential laying worker hive) I'm leaving it alone for now. Most of the cells look normal with one egg laid in the middle. Only a few cells have multiple eggs in them. From my research, the multiple eggs could also be caused by an inexperienced queen just learning how to lay properly. So I'm going to look at this one again in a week to see if it has capped brood and, if so, is it drone or worker brood. If I find worker brood then I should be ok. We will see.
 
#37 ·
If it's only some cells with 2-3 eggs in them, I would not worry about it. It's most likely just a new queen getting the hang of it. I had one of my two queens do the same for a bit at the beginning. She's just overperforming :)

In laying worker situations there are usually dozen or more eggs in each cell.
 
#41 ·
Just an update:

First, on the hive that might have laying workers, I introduced a Saskatraz queen. Unfortunately, they might have balled her because I have not seen any eggs. On the other hand, I haven't seen a dead queen either. This hive is still alive and appears to be doing well in many ways but I suspect it doesn't have a queen. I will know more as we move into Spring.

The other hive died due to mites. This hive had brood and a good queen. I did the large brood break in July and then treated with OA in Aug. - 4 treatments 5 days apart. I was confident that mites were taken care of so I didn't check for the rest of the Fall. The hive died a few weeks ago and I did an autopsy. There was plenty of honey and the cluster died within eating distance of it. I took about 89 of the bees and put them into a bowl. I picked through the bees and was able to pull off about 19 mites and I'm sure I didn't get them all. I'm just astounded that the hive ended up with so many mites. Any pointers on what I did wrong and how to do better in the future would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
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