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I currently have three hives that are all struggling to take off this year and I'd like some advice.
In an attempt to avoid the swarming issues I had to deal with last year I did minimal feeding this spring and really just let the bees do their own thing. By the time we hit dandelion bloom all three hives had come out of winter with ok populations, probably with colony sizes ranging between 2 and 3 pounds of bees. When I did try to feed them a bit in early May (before dandelion bloom) they didn't take much syrup. I chalked that up to the cold temperatures we were having and didn't think too much about it.
What I'm seeing is that all three hives have been really slow to build up. During recent hive inspections I've observed that the populations are pretty much stagnant and, in some cases, I'd say the population may have decreased. The brood pattern is pretty good but there isn't much of it. Probably 2 frames of brood total per colony ( that includes open and capped brood) plus a reasonable amount of nectar, pollen and capped honey considering the size of the colony. This is obviously way less than there should be this time of year. I'm disappointing that I'll miss the entire spring flow but it is what it is.
All three hives consist of two 10 frame deep bodies. Hive bodies were reversed two weeks ago and there's plenty of space for the queen to lay. All hives have 2013 colony raised queens and don't appear to have any diseases or other issues going on. I did not see any signs of dysentery this winter. Mite drop counts are low at last check with less than one mite per day (count was taken about three weeks ago). No mite treatments have been applied this spring.
I'm leaning toward requeening all three hives but wanted to seek a few other opinions first. Are there reasons other than failing queens that can lead to slow colony build-up like this? I'd hate to spend money on new queens only to find there's some other issue ongoing.
I've also debated combining two of the hives to make one but, given that I'll miss the spring flow anyway, I'm not sure what the real advantage is at this point. My goal is to build up colony strength over the summer and hope for a decent fall flow.
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
In an attempt to avoid the swarming issues I had to deal with last year I did minimal feeding this spring and really just let the bees do their own thing. By the time we hit dandelion bloom all three hives had come out of winter with ok populations, probably with colony sizes ranging between 2 and 3 pounds of bees. When I did try to feed them a bit in early May (before dandelion bloom) they didn't take much syrup. I chalked that up to the cold temperatures we were having and didn't think too much about it.
What I'm seeing is that all three hives have been really slow to build up. During recent hive inspections I've observed that the populations are pretty much stagnant and, in some cases, I'd say the population may have decreased. The brood pattern is pretty good but there isn't much of it. Probably 2 frames of brood total per colony ( that includes open and capped brood) plus a reasonable amount of nectar, pollen and capped honey considering the size of the colony. This is obviously way less than there should be this time of year. I'm disappointing that I'll miss the entire spring flow but it is what it is.
All three hives consist of two 10 frame deep bodies. Hive bodies were reversed two weeks ago and there's plenty of space for the queen to lay. All hives have 2013 colony raised queens and don't appear to have any diseases or other issues going on. I did not see any signs of dysentery this winter. Mite drop counts are low at last check with less than one mite per day (count was taken about three weeks ago). No mite treatments have been applied this spring.
I'm leaning toward requeening all three hives but wanted to seek a few other opinions first. Are there reasons other than failing queens that can lead to slow colony build-up like this? I'd hate to spend money on new queens only to find there's some other issue ongoing.
I've also debated combining two of the hives to make one but, given that I'll miss the spring flow anyway, I'm not sure what the real advantage is at this point. My goal is to build up colony strength over the summer and hope for a decent fall flow.
Any thoughts would be appreciated!