Well today I found SHB. Seen four of them when I took outer covee off. All so I seen a couple bees crawling around on ground lookd closer they look pale and undelovloped. Are these bees I crushed getting hive out the other bees are carrying them out. Queen is no were to be found now seen 12 queen cells. Should I buy a queen or let them do it? I'm new to this so any info would be great they been in my hive for about a week now
wild caught hive update.
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You might get you a beetle trap to help them. If you have a strong colony that is your best defense against SHB. How old is your colony? If the cells are on top or middle of frame they are making new queens to replace the old one most likely. If the cells are on bottom they are swarm cells. If you have a storing enough colony do a split with the queen cells. Others will have to weigh in on how many if any to destroy. 12 sounds like a lot.
Sounds like you lost, killed, or damaged the queen doing the removal. If you want those hive genetics than let them do their thing. Otherwise, locate a mated queen and install normally making sure to remove ALL q cells first.
Get some beetle traps in there ASAP, the colony strength will weaken for several more weeks until brood from the new queen starts emerging.
Get some beetle traps in there ASAP, the colony strength will weaken for several more weeks until brood from the new queen starts emerging.
All of the queen cups/cell are open with grubs in them and a bunch of white stuff. The grubs are differnt sizes but all look like they just added on to old cells. I checked again today still no sign of queen. But I took hive bosy off looked like maggots on bottom board where honey and pollon dripped
"Maggots" are probably SHB larvae. Turf them out ASAP. A dead larva can't grow up to make trouble. Chickens love 'em. If you tilt up your bottom hive off its base every day, you can capture and remove a lot of larvae. That will help until you can get a beetle trap. If your hive gets (or is already) too heavy to tilt, you can slide a varroa sticky board on the bottom (even if you don't have a screen bottom). Larvae will go under the board and you can often get them out by removing the board - they'll be clinging underneath. Eeeew! Don't do this unless you can commit to removing the board every day as it will provide a bee-proof haven for the larvae which would exacerbate your problem if you let the larvae mature.
Enj.
Enj.
Ok I smashed all I could and tosed them. I don't see and larvae on the comb just where it leaked honey on bottom. Do they just start on bottom as maggots. By tilting it do you mean leave it tilted."Maggots" are probably SHB larvae. Turf them out ASAP. A dead larva can't grow up to make trouble. Chickens love 'em. If you tilt up your bottom hive off its base every day, you can capture and remove a lot of larvae. That will help until you can get a beetle trap. If your hive gets (or is already) too heavy to tilt, you can slide a varroa sticky board on the bottom (even if you don't have a screen bottom). Larvae will go under the board and you can often get them out by removing the board - they'll be clinging underneath. Eeeew! Don't do this unless you can commit to removing the board every day as it will provide a bee-proof haven for the larvae which would exacerbate your problem if you let the larvae mature.
Enj.
I got two packages of bees coming should I put one of them with the queen? There's . 3/4 of the hive full of bees now but no queen.
Sorry, I wasn't clear!
No, I just meant tilt the bottom box up and off the bottom board enough have room to sweep the maggoty things out. You need to do this daily, so unpacking your hives from the topside probably is too much disturbance, too often. But you can access the narrow space under the bottom box by lifting it a bit w/o disassembling the stack. This won't work if you've already got multiple boxes, but since this is newly-hived colonie I figured you might not have a lot of heavy stuff in the stack. That's also why I added the other way of laying something on the bottom board which makes the larvae to go hide under, and then allows you to get them out when you take the board out as they will be clinging to the underside of it. But, as I mentioned don't add a bee-proof hiding place unless you know you can remove it every day, otherwise you will only be adding to your problems. It would be like putting in a green drone-cell frame and the never removing it!
Enj.
No, I just meant tilt the bottom box up and off the bottom board enough have room to sweep the maggoty things out. You need to do this daily, so unpacking your hives from the topside probably is too much disturbance, too often. But you can access the narrow space under the bottom box by lifting it a bit w/o disassembling the stack. This won't work if you've already got multiple boxes, but since this is newly-hived colonie I figured you might not have a lot of heavy stuff in the stack. That's also why I added the other way of laying something on the bottom board which makes the larvae to go hide under, and then allows you to get them out when you take the board out as they will be clinging to the underside of it. But, as I mentioned don't add a bee-proof hiding place unless you know you can remove it every day, otherwise you will only be adding to your problems. It would be like putting in a green drone-cell frame and the never removing it!
Enj.
Well was looking today seen acouple drones with red eyes. And the comb not covered in bees was infested with, the larvae so I took it out replace with new foundation and frames. I pick up some package bee tomorrow thinking about putting one in to help out but do I need to kill queen cells
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