[trottet1]

I installed 4 new packages on 4/11. today was my first inspection. 1 of the 4 is a gonner. there were a bunch of bees clustered in the hive top feeder and under that ontop of the frames were next to dead bees, pretty much half the colony. no work had been done on the frames at all. there were white little speckles all in the syrup and on the bees. I am writing this hive off as a loss (I'm ok with that)

The next one I checked, I saw no queen but I think I saw eggs. frames are being drawn out. I see clumps of pollen in cells.

The third one I checked I saw a queen, but also supercedure cells.

Do they just not like their queens? should I:

a- re-queen?

b- let them handle it?

c-do nothing and check back in a week and make a decision then?


any thoughts on whats going on here other than, don't start with packages and just get nucs from now on? lol.
todd

 

[JRG13]

Package bees can be off balanced and tend to replace perfectly good queens sometimes. Other times, the queens are just pure garbage and the bees are doing the right thing.

 

[trottet1]

So your opinion is let them handle it? Its pretty much what my gut is telling me. But me instinct has very little experience.

 

[psfred]

I had the same thing happen, installed a package and all went well, but after two weeks I had a small patch of capped brood and three lovely supercedure cells. I will be boosting them with a frame of capped brood from my big hive next week (or maybe open brood, depends on what is available in the deep) to keep their numbers up until their queen gets mated. A bit early, I hope the drones my big hive is diligently raising is ready.

The large number of bees, lack of comb, and a queen who is not yet laying often convinces the bees they need to replace the queen. They aren't very smart, after all.

I don't mind local bred bees -- they seem to be quite strong here, and very mite resistant most of the time.

Peter

 

[trottet1]

All the books I've read encourage you to atleast once, start with packages. They say,"it's such a great experience to start them off from scratch blah blah blahhhhhhhhh." Well this is my first and last time. Nucs to me just make so much more sense.

 

[Michael B]

Do you have other established hives? if so, give the package in question a frame of open brood if you feel the queen is of good quality. In my opinion the broodless condtion all packages start with is the cause of most of the problems.

 

[trottet1]

I only have one established hive that I started late last year and wintered as a single. I don't want to take any of their resources as I have pampered this hive and I really want it to build. Your advice does however make sense and I will take that info from your post for future situations. Thank you.

Todd