Howdy, I'm a relatively new beekeeper in central Florida having bought a couple of colonies about 18 months ago to pollinate a small blueberry farm I take care of. I was somewhat passive with my care until a couple of months ago when I moved my two hives from the farm to my home and through the course of trying to figure out why one was failing became a full blown addict.
I've since acquired four additional colonies I bought as double nuc boxes (Carniolans) that were overflowing. I picked them up on July 7th and in the process of transferring frames from the seller's double nucs to my single deeps only identified 3 queens (marked). Each of the 4 colonies had 10 full frames of bees then some, so I added a second deep once I got them home, checkerboarding in foundationless frames.
Within 3 days of moving them home two colonies killed their queens. By chance I noticed a single bee dragging a much larger, dead bee on the ground and upon inspection it was a marked queen. Two days later while trying to determine which colony it was from I noticed a ball of bees on the ground actively killing another marked queen. I saved her but she didn't survive and determined the third was more than likely queenless when I bought it. I had also split my strong existing colony 3 ways with 2 purchased local queens which they rejected (didn't leave them queenless long enough before introduction I presume) and quickly found myself with 5 of 8 hives lacking queens. My two failed splits had capped queen cells so I gave them a chance to hatch and mate but they were unsuccessful so I combined them back with their original colonies as I was now in danger of running out of egg and larvae frames to donate for queen raising.
Thankfully a local supplier had an unanticipated supply of queens available the last week of July and by this time the once empty foundationless frames were already being built out and filled so I decided to split the four double deep colonies and placed an order for queens for the splits. Two had raised their own queens which were successfully mated but after dividing up bees and resources I still had six fairly even boxes needing queens.
Fast forward to last week and all 6 queens were successfully introduced after leaving their respective colonies queenless for 24-36 hrs each and using of a double layer of tape over the fondant plug (which one hive chewed through the first night, so I added two more). A local well known Ukrainian beekeeper gave me the tip on using tape to prolong the new queens release and give more time for the bees to accept her and it seemed to have done the trick. I had to manually release 3 of them after a week but the others were chewed out within 5-6 days.
One colony had built out several queen cells which were capped on the day I went to release their queen (August 5) so I decided wth and further split it into 3 nuc's giving two a frame with capped queen cells, bees and resources, and the third the queen and bees etc.
Needless to say it's been a really busy and expensive month getting everything situated assembling and painting equipment, check on the status of queenless hives etc. and sadly I lost one of my splits yesterday to a hive beetle infestation (absconded) but am left with 10 strong colonies (including my two originals one of which was near death 2 months ago) and 2 more awaiting newly hatched queens to return mated. I can have 24 colonies on my 2 acres and have a few other properties for my use and currently plan to build to somewhere around 100 hives, managed more on the side of treatment free though I'm not against feeding splits and struggling colonies and treating with natural remedies. I'm also going foundationless but may consider a combo of foundation outside the brood boxes though I don't currently have plans to use queen excluders.
Anyhow, thanks to everyone who has shared information here and elsewhere, it has made it possible to learn a lot without the help of a mentor and I look forward to learning further from the wealth of knowledge contained here.
Hunter
I've since acquired four additional colonies I bought as double nuc boxes (Carniolans) that were overflowing. I picked them up on July 7th and in the process of transferring frames from the seller's double nucs to my single deeps only identified 3 queens (marked). Each of the 4 colonies had 10 full frames of bees then some, so I added a second deep once I got them home, checkerboarding in foundationless frames.
Within 3 days of moving them home two colonies killed their queens. By chance I noticed a single bee dragging a much larger, dead bee on the ground and upon inspection it was a marked queen. Two days later while trying to determine which colony it was from I noticed a ball of bees on the ground actively killing another marked queen. I saved her but she didn't survive and determined the third was more than likely queenless when I bought it. I had also split my strong existing colony 3 ways with 2 purchased local queens which they rejected (didn't leave them queenless long enough before introduction I presume) and quickly found myself with 5 of 8 hives lacking queens. My two failed splits had capped queen cells so I gave them a chance to hatch and mate but they were unsuccessful so I combined them back with their original colonies as I was now in danger of running out of egg and larvae frames to donate for queen raising.
Thankfully a local supplier had an unanticipated supply of queens available the last week of July and by this time the once empty foundationless frames were already being built out and filled so I decided to split the four double deep colonies and placed an order for queens for the splits. Two had raised their own queens which were successfully mated but after dividing up bees and resources I still had six fairly even boxes needing queens.
Fast forward to last week and all 6 queens were successfully introduced after leaving their respective colonies queenless for 24-36 hrs each and using of a double layer of tape over the fondant plug (which one hive chewed through the first night, so I added two more). A local well known Ukrainian beekeeper gave me the tip on using tape to prolong the new queens release and give more time for the bees to accept her and it seemed to have done the trick. I had to manually release 3 of them after a week but the others were chewed out within 5-6 days.
One colony had built out several queen cells which were capped on the day I went to release their queen (August 5) so I decided wth and further split it into 3 nuc's giving two a frame with capped queen cells, bees and resources, and the third the queen and bees etc.
Needless to say it's been a really busy and expensive month getting everything situated assembling and painting equipment, check on the status of queenless hives etc. and sadly I lost one of my splits yesterday to a hive beetle infestation (absconded) but am left with 10 strong colonies (including my two originals one of which was near death 2 months ago) and 2 more awaiting newly hatched queens to return mated. I can have 24 colonies on my 2 acres and have a few other properties for my use and currently plan to build to somewhere around 100 hives, managed more on the side of treatment free though I'm not against feeding splits and struggling colonies and treating with natural remedies. I'm also going foundationless but may consider a combo of foundation outside the brood boxes though I don't currently have plans to use queen excluders.
Anyhow, thanks to everyone who has shared information here and elsewhere, it has made it possible to learn a lot without the help of a mentor and I look forward to learning further from the wealth of knowledge contained here.
Hunter