[riseholmebees] Re: Lots of bees outside of hive
- From: Steve Pickard <steve_pickard@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 08:36:49 +0100
Hi Vanessa
My (equally inexperienced) opinion is that if they are overcrowded then you
need to put in a super, ideally with drawn foundation as I think it may be a
bit late for them to draw new stuff out.
Any particular reason why you don't want to over winter with brood and a
half? I've made the decision to leave one of my hives as a single box as I
don't think the colony will be that big, but on the other which is a
reasonable size I'm leaving a drawn super (now filled with stores) and taken
off the Queen excluder so they have plenty to keep them going through the
winter. Like you I'll move to larger brood boxes next year.
Interesting you've still got drone cells, mine all went weeks ago, brood and
bees.
Hope all well otherwise. Ben suggested a Christmas drink some time back, so
hopefully we can all meet up later on in year and swap horror stories of our
ineptitude
Steve
From: riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of VANESSA HUGHES
Sent: 10 October 2010 15:01
To: riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [riseholmebees] Lots of bees outside of hive
Hello everyone, I hope you are all keeping well. I have a problem with my
first hive and I'm not sure of the best thing to do. I completed four weeks
of Apilife Var treatment about 3 weeks ago and have been feeding since, even
though the bees have still been very busy. On Friday I saw that on the first
hive, supposedly Buckfasts, there were very many bees on the outside of the
hive, forming a perfect straight "wall" between the landing board and porch
over the entrance. Thay are still there today, if anything even more of
them. I looked inside last night, the first time for a good couple of weeks,
and the hive is absolutely full of honey, small areas of brood, some
uncapped, a few drone cells and still very many bees, in fact the numbers
don't look to have declined at all. They seem to be outside just because of
lack of room. Is this normal at this time of year, and what should I do. Is
is too late to put a super on , just to give them room, I don't really want
to overwinter with a super. I will have to change to a larger brood box next
year, but am concerned about them at the moment.
As I said before, they are still very busy, lots of ivy about, but I don't
know how long this, or the good weather will last. Any help would be
appreciated.
Thanks, Vanessa.
--- On Tue, 24/8/10, Adrian Goodman <agoodman@xxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:agoodman@xxxxxxxxxx%0bFrom:%20Adrian%20Goodman%20%3cagoodman@lincoln
.ac.uk>
From: Adrian Goodman <agoodman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [riseholmebees] Queenless stock
To: riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tuesday, 24 August, 2010, 22:56
Dear Jane and Dave
It is possible that your queen has stopped laying after a sudden cessation
of a late nectar flow (see Wedmore EB, 1948. A manual of beekeeping; page
249, paragraph 964). I would probably start feeding with sugar syrup to see
if you can stimulate egg laying. We had a similar issue with a colony at the
University at about the same time; despite the addition of eggs no queen was
raised indicating the presence of a queen. Alternatively, you could have a
laying worker or an old queen. If feeding does not stimulate egg laying
then swiftly unite them with your other hive - use the newspaper method so
that you have a strong colony for overwintering. You must keep on top of
your Varroa levels so that you have healthy bees for the winter; check that
your mite drop levels are not too high and treat accordingly (see the Varroa
calculator at:
https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/public/BeeDiseases/varroaCalculator
.cfm)
Cheers
Adrian
-----Original Message-----
From: riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees-bounce@freelists
.org> on behalf of Steve Pickard
Sent: Wed 18/08/2010 10:39
To: riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [riseholmebees] Re: Checking in after a while
Hi Jane (&Dave)
Just a thought, and maybe Adrian or Ben can comment, but do you think you'd
be wise to put a test frame of eggs (assuming you have got one) in to be
100% sure they are queenless, rather than a non-layer - otherwise you may
lose a newly introduced queen?
Steve
From: riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees-bounce@freelists
.org>
[mailto:riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees-bounce@freelists
.org> ] On Behalf Of Dave Leighton
Sent: 18 August 2010 09:02
To: riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [riseholmebees] Re: Checking in after a while
Dear Steve - No worries, in retrospect we decided it is too late to raise a
queen from egg this late in the season after we did the maths. But thanks
anyway for your reply. We narrowed the entrance considerably at the weekend
and they are coping much better with seeing off the intruders. I find it
most satisfying to squish wasps with my bare (gloved) hand though!
Dear Vanessa - thanks for thinking of us and I have contacted Oakfield Honey
this morning and they should have a queen for us at the beginning of
September, so I am going to persuade Dave this is the action we need to
take. I hope they will be ok till then..
Ho hum, till next time
Jane (&Dave)
From: riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees-bounce@freelists
.org>
[mailto:riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees-bounce@freelists
.org> ] On Behalf Of Steve Pickard
Sent: 17 August 2010 08:17
To: riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [riseholmebees] Re: Checking in after a while
Hi Dave & Jane
All a bit of a saga this beekeeping, who said it was a nice gentle hobby?
Re wasps, I've been inundated as well, was quite worried for a time as one
of my colonies was pretty small. However, (touch wood) seems to have turned
the corner. What I did was
. Most importantly, narrow the entrance to one or two bees width
maximum. Give the bees a chance to defend
. Set traps galore, including the Rat Glue mentioned previously
which has been the most effective (let me know if you need details again)
. Killed off one local nest, but that seems to have made little
difference
Still got quite a few of the little ******** hanging around, but they are
finding it difficult to get into the hive, and I often while away a quarter
of an hour splatting them with rolled up newspaper (suited up of course!)
Afraid I'm a bit tight for brood myself if I'm tryng to take two through
winter, otherwise would have been happy to help
Steve
From: riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees-bounce@freelists
.org>
[mailto:riseholmebees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees-bounce@freelists
.org> ] On Behalf Of Dave Leighton
Sent: 16 August 2010 16:26
To: riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://uk.mc870.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=riseholmebees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [riseholmebees] Checking in after a while
Hi all
Sorry we haven't been keeping you all up to date recently, but we have had
quite an eventful summer and just back from our hols a week ago.
After losing one of our hives it died out completely we bought in a swarm
from Rick Keracher at the Association, they are lovely quiet bees, quite
small and light in colour.
Meanwhile the other one repeatedly swarmed and re-swarmed (I think Adrian
may have collected a swarm of ours from Welton)and has been queenless since
the beginning of June and has resisted one attempt to re-queen by importing
new eggs from Ben's colonies. This is the state of play just before we left
for our holidays. As a last attempt to get something happening whilst we
were away, we moved a frame with eggs from the new girls into our other
hive, went on holiday with our fingers, toes and legs crossed! At the same
inspection we managed to find and mark the queen in the new colony - result.
Returning from holiday and wondering what we would find we were really
pleased to see a lot of pollen going into our previously queenless hive (an
indicator that there were eggs, larvae, brood) but also lots and lots of
wasps. We didn't dare open either for inspection but set a load of traps
to hopefully reduce wasp numbers so we could inspect. We managed to look in
yesterday and lo-and behold we saw larvae and capped brood in the original
hive YIPEE at last! Although the down side was that the wasps have robbed
nearly everything out of a virtually full super, although they may have used
this up themselves in the hungry gap.
With hope in our hearts we inspected the newer hive, only to see on first
visual inspection that there was no increase in numbers. When we looked
through the frames there is virtually no brood, a clear indicator that we
are once again QUEENLESS. Are they ganging up on us, taking it in turns or
just testing our new knowledge? Either way I think what we are asking is,
is there anyone out there kind enough to donate us a frame with new eggs on,
in the hope that they will raise themselves a new queen so we can hopefully
build this colony up enough to survive winter?
Sorry for the parable - but the first year as beekeepers was a doddle
compared to year 2, hopefully year three will not be worse J
Looking forward to hearing from a good Samaritan who can come to our aid.
Steve - in reply to your question about whether the queen was treated last
year, no we only used icing sugar treatment and fumidil in March. We
haven't as yet resorted to any chemicals - we are still dosing with icing
sugar, we don't think they are strong enough for anything else yet.
Regards
Dave & Jane
Other related posts:
