Hi all!
Looking for some advice on next steps. I have two hives each in two, 10 frame deeps. My strong hive has a juggernaut queen that lays eggs on anything that's not fast enough to get out of her way. Both hives are in the top boxes and even the "cursed" hive has a decent amount of bees.
Here is a little background:
I installed two packages last year (my first year beekeeping) and one hive did really well (meaning required very little management), the other....not so much
It started out with a poorly mated queen, layed well for a week or two and then became spotty with drones mixed all over. They superceded and all was well for a short period of time until spotty brood and drones scattered all over again. I then bought a queen (marked) towards the end of summer, she laid well and the hive looked good going into winter. Of course this whole time my strong hive is propping up the weaker one with frames of brood....
So fast forward to about a month ago, and I open both hives and low and behold my "strong" hive is looking good with brood starting to fill the top box. Queen looks great, she looks even better then what I recalled of her in early fall. Then to the "cursed hive"...no sign of the queen, spotty drone brood, a few scattered eggs (some on top of pollen), decent amount of bees. So I assumed I had a laying worker hive. Ove three weeks I put a frame of open brood in the hive hoping to suppress the laying worker and possibly make a queen. I added the third frame on Sunday then added a queen I had purchased on Tuesday (4/8). Checked the hive today and no sign of the queen, cage was empty and no eggs. I did find two queen cells, one capped and one not quite but with a larvae inside.
I did start a small nuc on Wed (I had ordered two queens). The queen is still in the cage, but it hasn't been released yet.
Now...here's my dilemma.
I had hoped to get some honey this year and eventually split to add another hive or two. I've been pulling from the strong hive which has basically kept it from really taking off (they are still in the top deep, with around 7 frames of brood now). The nectar flow here should kick off in earnest pretty soon.
So at this point what would be your next step? Combine with the strong hive? Let the strong hive build up and let the queen cells in the "cursed" hive hatch out? Sacrifice a bucket of KFC?
At this point I'm open to just about anything! Thanks in advance
Looking for some advice on next steps. I have two hives each in two, 10 frame deeps. My strong hive has a juggernaut queen that lays eggs on anything that's not fast enough to get out of her way. Both hives are in the top boxes and even the "cursed" hive has a decent amount of bees.
Here is a little background:
I installed two packages last year (my first year beekeeping) and one hive did really well (meaning required very little management), the other....not so much
It started out with a poorly mated queen, layed well for a week or two and then became spotty with drones mixed all over. They superceded and all was well for a short period of time until spotty brood and drones scattered all over again. I then bought a queen (marked) towards the end of summer, she laid well and the hive looked good going into winter. Of course this whole time my strong hive is propping up the weaker one with frames of brood....
So fast forward to about a month ago, and I open both hives and low and behold my "strong" hive is looking good with brood starting to fill the top box. Queen looks great, she looks even better then what I recalled of her in early fall. Then to the "cursed hive"...no sign of the queen, spotty drone brood, a few scattered eggs (some on top of pollen), decent amount of bees. So I assumed I had a laying worker hive. Ove three weeks I put a frame of open brood in the hive hoping to suppress the laying worker and possibly make a queen. I added the third frame on Sunday then added a queen I had purchased on Tuesday (4/8). Checked the hive today and no sign of the queen, cage was empty and no eggs. I did find two queen cells, one capped and one not quite but with a larvae inside.
I did start a small nuc on Wed (I had ordered two queens). The queen is still in the cage, but it hasn't been released yet.
Now...here's my dilemma.
I had hoped to get some honey this year and eventually split to add another hive or two. I've been pulling from the strong hive which has basically kept it from really taking off (they are still in the top deep, with around 7 frames of brood now). The nectar flow here should kick off in earnest pretty soon.
So at this point what would be your next step? Combine with the strong hive? Let the strong hive build up and let the queen cells in the "cursed" hive hatch out? Sacrifice a bucket of KFC?
At this point I'm open to just about anything! Thanks in advance