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My question is about otherwise thriving, broodless hives. But first my day, for context, ostensibly (but really because it's interesting -- at least to me). The day started with me and my buddy cutting down a 60' hardwood tree with bees in it for some loggers. No honey, some brood, not many bees; found the queen, caged her, put the brood in frames, and left her and the brood in a nuc by the stump. We then checked out a nearby, ongoing second story trapout in an antebellum house. We had already gotten the queen in the trapout a few days ago, but we left in the trapout box some brood that she had already laid, including a capped queen cell. We sealed up a new opening in the house and went to check and, hopefully, super the hives at a bee yard on the way back to town. The hives did not need supering -- the spring honey flow has been seriously delayed in our area, at least for us, due, I think, to cool weather. We found our first broodless hive of the day there, a medium nuc of bees that we had caught in a swarm box some time in the last few weeks. We then go to a small bee yard and find that 2 out of the 3 hives have no brood -- Lots of bees, a fair amount of honey, but no brood and we don't see a queen.
We then went to another location where 1 out of the 2 hives has lots of bees, some honey and, again, no brood. While there, we got a call from a nice Englishman equestrian with a colony in the first floor ceiling of a townhouse he's having gutted near his stables and paddocks 20 miles away. We go to the townhouse/paddocks cutout, size it up, go get our bee vac, come back (stopping on the way back to plug a weep hole in another ongoing trapout), cut out the bees and vac. There's 5 gallons of honey (very unusual right now where we are), 30,000 or so bees and no brood. No brood (repeated for emphasis), and apparently no queen. We didn't spot the queen (which is actually unusual for my buddy, but not for me), and the bees don't react to the box from the vac as though we have vacuumed a queen. We clean out all the comb, take the bees, leaving a nuc with some LGO in it for stragglers. Then we go by my house to hopefully get a couple of small queenright nucs to combine with the broodless hives. But we find 3 more broodless hives -- this was actually not too surprising here because these particularly nucs were from small, marginal cutouts, splits, or swarms and were among some hives to be requeened or watched to see what their queen situation was. We did a newspaper combine there and took one small, queenright hive to combine with one of the otherwise thriving, queenless hives from another yard. Then we went back to the tree we had cut down this morning to pick up the nuc with the caged queen. On the way back, we stopped at one of the small beeyards to pick up another queenright nuc and drop off the bees from the townhouse cutout-- actually did a newspaper combine with them because there had been no brood (but 30,000 bees and 5 gallons of honey). Then we went to another small beeyard to do the 2 newspaper combines and to drop off the queenright nuc of bees from the tree we had cut down this morning. I'm beat. Is there something about this time of year that can cause there to be a high number otherwise seemingly thriving queenwrong colonies with lots of bees and honey? Cheers.
We then went to another location where 1 out of the 2 hives has lots of bees, some honey and, again, no brood. While there, we got a call from a nice Englishman equestrian with a colony in the first floor ceiling of a townhouse he's having gutted near his stables and paddocks 20 miles away. We go to the townhouse/paddocks cutout, size it up, go get our bee vac, come back (stopping on the way back to plug a weep hole in another ongoing trapout), cut out the bees and vac. There's 5 gallons of honey (very unusual right now where we are), 30,000 or so bees and no brood. No brood (repeated for emphasis), and apparently no queen. We didn't spot the queen (which is actually unusual for my buddy, but not for me), and the bees don't react to the box from the vac as though we have vacuumed a queen. We clean out all the comb, take the bees, leaving a nuc with some LGO in it for stragglers. Then we go by my house to hopefully get a couple of small queenright nucs to combine with the broodless hives. But we find 3 more broodless hives -- this was actually not too surprising here because these particularly nucs were from small, marginal cutouts, splits, or swarms and were among some hives to be requeened or watched to see what their queen situation was. We did a newspaper combine there and took one small, queenright hive to combine with one of the otherwise thriving, queenless hives from another yard. Then we went back to the tree we had cut down this morning to pick up the nuc with the caged queen. On the way back, we stopped at one of the small beeyards to pick up another queenright nuc and drop off the bees from the townhouse cutout-- actually did a newspaper combine with them because there had been no brood (but 30,000 bees and 5 gallons of honey). Then we went to another small beeyard to do the 2 newspaper combines and to drop off the queenright nuc of bees from the tree we had cut down this morning. I'm beat. Is there something about this time of year that can cause there to be a high number otherwise seemingly thriving queenwrong colonies with lots of bees and honey? Cheers.
