New beek. New pictures and new questions

[keljonma]

mandieg4 -

For your pics: That's honey; That's a drone. That's your queen!



Are these established colonies in hives you purchased?

Or were they used empty hives and you added a bee package and queen?

If the queens were not proven layers (mated) before you got them, they will have to go do a drone congregating area and get mated before they can come home and start laying beautiful eggs in the cells.

You don't say where you are located. Here in NE OH we are still feeding bees as there is not enough in bloom and not enough good dry foraging days yet for the bees to get their own food. Personally, this time of year I would feed 1:1 (1 cup water to 1 cup sugar) sugar syrup with Honey B Healthy (essential oils) and a pollen patty.

If only half the bees were in the hive, it could mean they were out foraging for nectar and pollen, providing you have good foraging weather.

Did you check the hives for the queen?

It does take a while for the queen's phernome to penetrate the colony and I have been told that if you open the hive too early the bees might leave.

This is the time of year when colonies do swarm.....especially established colonies. You can't miss a swarm (if you are home). It sounds like a loud roar like a freight train taking off!

 

[mandieg4]

I'm in Georgia and I've been told we are actually coming to the end of our spring nectar flow, but I do have a top feeder with the 1:1 sugar water in it. These are established colonies, the queens were raised in these boxes but they were just moved from North Georgia to my place in Mid Georgia. I haven't seen the queen in my son's box, I'm beginning to doubt she's there. The thing that baffles me is, shouldn't there be something in his hive brood wise even if there isn't a queen? Wouldn't a worker have taken over laying drone eggs? Or does that take more than a couple days? The number of bees probably wouldn't have even caught my attention if I hadn't checked my hive first and had something to compare it too. There doesn't seem to be as much coming and going with my son's hive either.

 

[keljonma]

I have no experience with a laying worker bee.

I know when our hive swarmed last year, the original queen laid the egg for her replacement.

I have no experience with moving hives more than a few feet.

What I have read about moving hives is that once moved, the entrance should be filled with grass so that the bees have to notice that something is quite different. This is supposed to cause them to stay close to home and check out the new landscape before just flying off. If they don't get acclimated to their new location, they may try to find their way back to the original home site again.

Did you inspect the hive before it was moved?

Do you have an idea of what the population was of the hive before it was moved?

Were you told the queen had been laying eggs before purchase?
We waited 3 weeks after installing our bees to check the laying pattern of our Italian queen.

For egg laying, the queen will need a good source of protein (from pollen). If there is a lot blooming, the workers should be able to bring plenty of pollen and nectar back to the hive. But this hive looks (from this frame) as if it could use some help, and I would probably feed a pollen patty as well as the syrup.

Is it possible the colony swarmed and the original queen and half the colony left? If you think this might be possible, you will be able to see queen cells because they will look like peanut shells hanging low on the frame.

Wouldn't a worker have taken over laying drone eggs? Or does that take more than a couple days?

See those largeish looking cells being made by the workers in the first picture? Those look like they are going to be drone cells to me.

Personally, I would leave the hive for a week. Then check it completely and see if you can't find the queen.

Do you have at least one beekeeper book? There are a ton of them out there. Beekeeping for Dummies is a good beginner book, but like all books, it doesn't cover everything. I would suggest check your local public library and borrow a book to read before actually purchasing.

 

[MsPony]

Pretty bees!! I know nothing about them, my dog and I are deathly allergic But I have huge respect for them (I have to, otherwise I'd hate them too much.)

What does "swarm" mean exactly? Why do they do this?

 

[keljonma]

What does "swarm" mean exactly? Why do they do this?

MsPony, A swarm is the way honeybees start a new colony. The queen leaves the hive with a group of bees (usually about 25,000) to find a new home. Depending on when they swarm, the new colony may or may not survivie. A beekeeper can add to his bee apiary by capturing swarms for new hives.

Below is more detailed information that comes from the Mid-Atlantic Agriculture Research and Extension Consortium.

A colony of honey bees comprises a cluster of several to 60,000 workers (sexually immature females), a queen (a sexually developed female), and, depending on the colony population and season of year, a few to several hundred drones (sexually developed males). A colony normally has only one queen, whose sole function is egg laying. The bees cluster loosely over several wax combs, the cells of which are used to store honey (carbohydrate food) and pollen (protein food) and to rear young bees to replace old adults.

During early spring, the lengthening days and new sources of pollen and nectar stimulate brood rearing. The bees also gather water to regulate temperature and to liquefy thick or granulated honey in the preparation of brood food. Drones will be absent or scarce at this time of the year.

Later in the spring, the population of the colony expands rapidly and the proportion of young bees increases. As the population increases, the field-worker force also increases. Field bees may collect nectar and pollen in greater amounts than are needed to maintain brood rearing, and surpluses of honey or pollen may accumulate).

As the days lengthen and the temperature continues to increase, the cluster expands further and drones are produced. With an increase in brood rearing and the accompanymg increase in adult bees, the nest area of the colony becomes crowded. More bees are evident at the entrance of the nest. A telltale sign of overcrowding is to see the bees crawl out and hang in a cluster around the en trance on a warm afternoon.

Combined with crowded conditions, the queen also increases drone egg laying in preparing for the natural division of the colony by swarming. In addition to rearing workers and drones, the bees also prepare to rear a new queen. A few larvae that would normally develop into worker bees are fed a special gland food called royal jelly, their cells are reconstructed to accommodate the larger queen, and her rate of development is speeded up. The number of queen cells produced varies with races and strains of bees as well as individual colonies.

When the first virgin queen is almost ready to emerge, and before the main nectar flow, the colony will swarm during the warmer hours of the day. The old queen and about half of the bees will rush en masse out the entrance. After flying around in the air for several minutes, they will cluster on the limb of a tree or similar object. This cluster usually remains for an hour or so, depending on the time taken to find a new home by scouting bees. When a location is found, the cluster breaks up and flies to it. On reaching the new location, combs are quickly constructed, brood rearing starts, and nectar and pollen are gathered. Swarming generally occurs in the Central, Southern, and Western States from March to June, although it can occur at almost any time from April to October.

After the swarm departs, the remaining bees in the parent colony continue their field work of collecting nectar, pollen, propolis, and water. They also care for the eggs, larvae, and food, guard the entrance, and build combs. Emerging drones are nurtured so that there will be a male population for mating the virgin queen. When she emerges from her cell, she eats honey, grooms herself for a short time, and then proceeds to look for rival queens within the colony. Mortal combat eliminates all queens except one. When the survivor is about a week old, she flies out to mate with one or more drones in the air. The drones die after mating, but the mated queen returns to the nest as the new queen mother. Nurse bees care for her, whereas prior to mating she was ignored. Within 3 or 4 days the mated queen begins egg laying.

 

[me&thegals]

Pollen is not shiny and bees don't populate the frame with pollen and honey together.

Mine do They have bands of pollen, bands of nectar and brood all in the same frame in the broodnest.

 

[keljonma]

Pollen is not shiny and bees don't populate the frame with pollen and honey together.

Mine do They have bands of pollen, bands of nectar and brood all in the same frame in the broodnest.

Good point, m&tg! I totally missed that post... Maybe bjmstahl was thinking of honey super frames above the queen excluder.......

 

[keljonma]

mandieg4


How goes it with the bees???

 

[mandieg4]

I checked them last Wednesday and things look to be improving. I found the queen in my son's hive and about a dozen cells with eggs in them so that is a good sign. They've gone through about a quart of sugar water since then also, which is more than my hive has used, but I'm assuming that's just because there are less bees in his hive to go out and forage. I hoping I can get out there to check it again tomorrow, the last couple days have been too wet and chilly for me to open the hive.

 

[keljonma]

That does sound encouraging. I would definitely keep up the sugar syrup, since they obviously need it. Please keep us updated.