Hey there,
I took on a hive split, the no queen half. It was my first hive. I've read a ton and worked a few hives with the beekeeper who gave me the split.
We split the hive on March 14.
I got a package last Friday and hived them in a separate hive on Saturday. They appear to be doing well.
Today its been 26 days since the split. On monday the hive looked like it was getting ready to swarm so I went thru the hive for the first time since the split. I didn't find a queen or capped brood but it was also the first time I ever gone thru a hive alone. I know fresh/virgin queens are really hard to spot.
Someone told me later that what I thought was swarming could have been the queen taking her flight?
The hive was fairly nasty after I went thru it. I also took the opportunity to do a sugar shake(that would piss ME off) The bees seemed to hunt us down for the rest of the day. They would sting the sleeping dogs and it was like a bombing session to make out way out to the car 5 hours later. I was told this it's common for a queenless hive to be crabby.
A few beekeepers recommended putting a frame of brood/eggs in the hive. We did that the next day -Wed. We were not %100 positive there were eggs on the frame. It was then recommended that I just requeen. I spoke to a local beekeeper that will have new queens this weekend and told him the situation. He laughed first- a sense of humor is important!! He recommended taking a frame of eggs from my new package and putting that in the queenless hive. I told a fellow beekeeper that plan and he said that the new packages have a hard enough time and not to take new eggs away from them.
So now my idea is to take the frame of brood that we put in the queenless hive and trade it for a frame of eggs from the new package.
When I went thru the hive there were multiple(7 on one frame and 3 on another) queen cells but all appeared to be empty. I don't think they were chewed open but again this is my first hive.
Questions:
Should I go back thru the hive with a fine tooth comb today and look for queen/eggs and brood?
Would you take the frame from the new package and trade for the other brood? or am I putting my new package at risk? I'm hoping if I can get the queenless hive going I can strengthen the package with frames of brood later in the season if it needs it.
Any ideas or insight would be really appreciated. Thanks a bunch for your time in reading this. I know- it's a novel!!
PS. I know I'm probably over thinking this
I took on a hive split, the no queen half. It was my first hive. I've read a ton and worked a few hives with the beekeeper who gave me the split.
We split the hive on March 14.
I got a package last Friday and hived them in a separate hive on Saturday. They appear to be doing well.
Today its been 26 days since the split. On monday the hive looked like it was getting ready to swarm so I went thru the hive for the first time since the split. I didn't find a queen or capped brood but it was also the first time I ever gone thru a hive alone. I know fresh/virgin queens are really hard to spot.
Someone told me later that what I thought was swarming could have been the queen taking her flight?
The hive was fairly nasty after I went thru it. I also took the opportunity to do a sugar shake(that would piss ME off) The bees seemed to hunt us down for the rest of the day. They would sting the sleeping dogs and it was like a bombing session to make out way out to the car 5 hours later. I was told this it's common for a queenless hive to be crabby.
A few beekeepers recommended putting a frame of brood/eggs in the hive. We did that the next day -Wed. We were not %100 positive there were eggs on the frame. It was then recommended that I just requeen. I spoke to a local beekeeper that will have new queens this weekend and told him the situation. He laughed first- a sense of humor is important!! He recommended taking a frame of eggs from my new package and putting that in the queenless hive. I told a fellow beekeeper that plan and he said that the new packages have a hard enough time and not to take new eggs away from them.
So now my idea is to take the frame of brood that we put in the queenless hive and trade it for a frame of eggs from the new package.
When I went thru the hive there were multiple(7 on one frame and 3 on another) queen cells but all appeared to be empty. I don't think they were chewed open but again this is my first hive.
Questions:
Should I go back thru the hive with a fine tooth comb today and look for queen/eggs and brood?
Would you take the frame from the new package and trade for the other brood? or am I putting my new package at risk? I'm hoping if I can get the queenless hive going I can strengthen the package with frames of brood later in the season if it needs it.
Any ideas or insight would be really appreciated. Thanks a bunch for your time in reading this. I know- it's a novel!!
PS. I know I'm probably over thinking this