[HobbyBeek]

Hello OregonBeek,

I am eagerly awaiting your return from vacation and your next inspection... I was going to post a similar inquiry but upon reading this thread realized that the situation you describe is my exact predicament. During a mid-July inspection I noticed same conditions (few capped brood, no larva, etc... and queen cells at bottom of a couple frames). Not knowing fully what to do I quickly closed up the hive to re-group my thoughts. The best I can figure I missed a swarm on this bran new hive (early May) from package bees. Upon going back in for a more complete inspection a couple days later I confirmed vacated swarm cells and another with an emerging queen. Not sure if this was cool but I flipped open the cover to this queen cell and saw the new queen scamper off onto the frame. Quite amazing...

Not sure what caused the swarm. The colony was growing beautifully. More bees than I would of ever expected (being in my first year / first hive). I now have 3 medium brood chambers and 1 medium super all fully drawn out. Colony is definitely weaker since the swarm and I am now biding my time before going in and confirming a new queen is working. All kinds of things (as a newbie) crossed my mind including ordering a new queen, did I injure the one I released, did the other queens they produced survive, was there a laying worker... too many for me to make any decisions better than they could so I decided to let nature take its course. Though I am feeding 1:1 which they are taking.

I plan to inspect either 8/17 or 8/20... worst case scenario I guess is I end up with 32 frames of drawn out comb for the spring.

Looking forward to how you made out.

 

[HobbyBeek]

Hey Oregon,

I did a complete inspection yesterday of my my similarly afflicted hive. About same exact result as well...

Worked my way progressively lower through brood boxes and (though it was VERY difficult to discern) I am confident that I had new eggs in comb on at least one frame. I closed everything up and decided to wait about a week and go have a look at that frame.

I agree with your thoughts. Why not wait the few days or week to see if those eggs hatch? Worst case scenario you still combine the two hives, but after you are 100% certain your colony would be doomed.

keep me posted.

 

[HobbyBeek]

Great News Oregon! I am going to do a quick inspection on Monday. That should be my defining moment... after seeing the eggs on Wed I stopped feeding and dropped a medium super on top. Hive is still very busy but weakening I imagine. Not sure if this is a good idea but I figure they may need room in the event of a population explosion in a few weeks. The other four 8 frame mediums are pretty much all built up with comb with top one filled with stores (all the sugar water they have been taking).

Does the capped brood you mention have the indicative bullet shaped cap? If not you've got workers and not drone I am sure.

Kinda cool how the bees make it work. I never expected honey this year and resigned myself to a learning experience, and it certainly is turning out to be that. More on Monday...

 

[HobbyBeek]

Oregon and Ma,

Sorry for the delay. The weather's been poor and some business travel prevented me from doing an inspection. Until yesterday...

So the very good news is that my hive is back in business. Making an inspection yesterday I was pleased to find plenty of capped brood and larva in various stages of development. Making this past six weeks a very interesting experience in the life of a new beekeeper. I did not want to do much more than identify brood so did not go hunting for the new queen but noted a much calmer hive, significantly less drone activity, and a certain sense of order being returned. I want to point out that from my perspective I did nothing at all (but take a look once in a while and provide a source of sugar water), the girls did it all. They learned me good...

My hopes are a bit elevated in that they may make it through winter now. So I will start to prepare for that, which of course means more education is on the way...