[spacemoose]

i started out this year with 2 hives,now i have 9. all my swarms came from these 2 hives,as i witnessed it happening. my first swarm has already swarmed. these are doing fine. the fourth swarm does not seem to be producing very well. i have had them and the 3 swarms after them on a watermelon patch. all are drawing comb out in the supers except the one hive. i have tried pollen patties, sugar water at 5lbs. to 2 quarts water. the others empty entrance feeders in a couple of hours.these take several days, i would rather not combine hives if i can help it.when i first hived them, i had to use shllow frames in deep box, but changed all out but two frames that has brood, the other frames were still empty. i dont know if color matters much,but this hive is painted camo, whereas all the rest are white. should i try to requeen this time of year? move frames to a white hive ? also i can move hive to mom's house 20 miles away, where golden rod is very dense.( very sparse here) i hate to lose the hive over the winter. all have been treated with apistan strips and show no signs of infestation. i am using langstroth type hives. i live in coastal nc. if you'd like to e mail me : [email protected] thanks for all your help. david

 

[Robert Hawkins]

<all have been treated with apistan strips and show no signs of infestation>

If you have no signs of infestation, why did you treat?

The best of my understanding is you now have two shallow frames of brood in this hive. Nothing else is drawn. And they are in a single deep box. Even if coastal NC has moderate winters this swarm needs to die out. Combine it with the next weakest. In order to strengthen wwhat you have you need to be avle to let some go.

Yes you could feed this hive all winter. Heck, you could move it into your bedroom. the main question for me would bee, do you want to save the genes. I think not. We like the genes that build comb quickly. In fact I'm going to start selecting for it. Imagine that. Getting bees to make wax instead of honey.

Anyway it sounds like you've had a very successful year. Congrats.

Hawk

 

[spacemoose]

well ,i had one of the origional hives that did have mites,so as a precaution/preventative measure i added strips to all, thanks for the info hawk. david

 

[Robert Hawkins]

David, that wasn't info. Just take it as one responders opinion. Then wait for others to disagree. They gotta get home from church so check back in the AM.

Hawk