I would just like to say I think you are all far too worried about your bees. Some things can and do go wrong, but most of them are difficult to predict and difficult to prevent. A lot of the situations you see are just normal.
If you think about what goes on and what motivates the bees most situations take care of themselves. The rare situation that you're not sure of, can usually be INSURED by giving them some fresh eggs and letting them sort it out.
For instance:
You find queen cells all over, middle, and bottom and a queen. What is happening? Probably a supercedure, but if there are more on the bottom I might lean toward a swarm. So what do you do? I find destroying queen cells to be a bad idea. First they may be superceding and I stopped them. Second, if they are intent on swarming they will just keep making more.
You find queen cells all over, middle, and bottom and you don't see a queen. First, this is typical of emergency cells, so it's likely there ISN'T a queen. If you leave them alone they will probably replace the queen. If they get an inferior queen, they will just supercede her and things will go on nicely. If you panic and destroy all those queen cells you may end up queenless.
You find no eggs, no uncapped larvae and no queen, or maybe a small flighty queen. Probably she's a virgin. They are hard to find so just because you see no eggs and no larvae and no queen does not mean there isn't one. I used to panic and buy a queen and then they would reject her and by the time I sorted all that out I would find larvae and realize I wasted my money on the queen. There was already a virgin that just wasn't laying yet.
They aren't doing whatever it is you THINK they SHOULD be doing. Drawing wax, making brood, etc. If they SHOULD be doing it, they WOULD be doing it. Let them sort it out.
About the only situations in need of your interference are actual queenlessness with no queen cells, laying workers, not enough room for the queen to lay, not enough room to store nectar. In these situations you NEED to do something. A lot of swarm cells probably requires some intervention, and pretty much I try to help them do it. Put the old queen and a lot of the bees and brood in another location in another box and let the swarm cells emerge.
Basically if you figure out what the bees want to do, help them. If you can't figure it out, give them the resources (food or brood if they don't have it) and stay out of their way.
"Everything works if you let it" Art Carney in the movie Roadie.
"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." Gypsy Rose Lee.
"No one teaches beekeeping quite as well as bees." Michael Bush (with apologies to C.S. Lewis)
If you think about what goes on and what motivates the bees most situations take care of themselves. The rare situation that you're not sure of, can usually be INSURED by giving them some fresh eggs and letting them sort it out.
For instance:
You find queen cells all over, middle, and bottom and a queen. What is happening? Probably a supercedure, but if there are more on the bottom I might lean toward a swarm. So what do you do? I find destroying queen cells to be a bad idea. First they may be superceding and I stopped them. Second, if they are intent on swarming they will just keep making more.
You find queen cells all over, middle, and bottom and you don't see a queen. First, this is typical of emergency cells, so it's likely there ISN'T a queen. If you leave them alone they will probably replace the queen. If they get an inferior queen, they will just supercede her and things will go on nicely. If you panic and destroy all those queen cells you may end up queenless.
You find no eggs, no uncapped larvae and no queen, or maybe a small flighty queen. Probably she's a virgin. They are hard to find so just because you see no eggs and no larvae and no queen does not mean there isn't one. I used to panic and buy a queen and then they would reject her and by the time I sorted all that out I would find larvae and realize I wasted my money on the queen. There was already a virgin that just wasn't laying yet.
They aren't doing whatever it is you THINK they SHOULD be doing. Drawing wax, making brood, etc. If they SHOULD be doing it, they WOULD be doing it. Let them sort it out.
About the only situations in need of your interference are actual queenlessness with no queen cells, laying workers, not enough room for the queen to lay, not enough room to store nectar. In these situations you NEED to do something. A lot of swarm cells probably requires some intervention, and pretty much I try to help them do it. Put the old queen and a lot of the bees and brood in another location in another box and let the swarm cells emerge.
Basically if you figure out what the bees want to do, help them. If you can't figure it out, give them the resources (food or brood if they don't have it) and stay out of their way.
"Everything works if you let it" Art Carney in the movie Roadie.
"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." Gypsy Rose Lee.
"No one teaches beekeeping quite as well as bees." Michael Bush (with apologies to C.S. Lewis)
