My late winter inspection

SmithN · Post by **SmithN** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:02 pm

This mild weather is great for a late winter inspection.
I went in 6 of my 10 hives this week , I found some decent clusters and viewed brood in 5 of the 6 hives I inspected.
In hive #8 I have a good cluster but the only brood is drone brood in worker cells.
That is a bad sign, I believe it is queenless or the queen can no longer perform!
I am considering my options, do a shake out or combine?
I plan to check the 4 remaining hives before deciding.
Any suggestions?

I took pictures of the clusters including hive #8.
Some clusters were in two supers.

Link below to pictures of my clusters.
Hive #8

Pictures of hive clusters....
http://s524.photobucket.com/albums/cc33 ... %202-2011/

Post by **Wally** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:11 pm

Looking good. If the choices are only combine or shake out, I would do a 50 ft. shake out. It would give numerous hives a slight addition rather than all bees going into one hive.

SmithN · Post by **SmithN** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:49 pm

Thanks Wally,
You have another option?
I don't have a queen for requeening.
I didn't overwinter a nuc this year and of course
this is the year I need a early queen.

Post by **Wally** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 6:53 am

One other option is to wait until March, to see if she changes, Kona queens should be arriving about then. Another would be to give them a frame of brood once a week until they raise a queen.

SmithN · Post by **SmithN** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 9:08 pm

Thank you Wally,
I will wait a couple weeks and see how they look.
I Plan to check the other hives by the weekend,
I'll post and let you know how they're doing.

Kurt Bower · Post by **Kurt Bower** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:20 am

If I had a queenless hive I would combine.
While queens may be readily available in March I would question wether or not they would accept a queen after such a long queenless period. ( I just hate losing a $25 queen)
Combination will bolster your weakest colony with the potential to split later. Combinations this time of year work well with minimal fighting. Guess they are too cold to fight.

Kurt

ski · Post by **ski** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:42 pm

Started getting into my hives today and just wanted to share a picture.
I have a 3 story medium frame nuc that I looked at first and have a couple of pictures. I think its my first decent picture of a queen in my hives.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... 011001.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... 011004.jpg

I was feeling pretty good about the nuc with capped brood and larvae and open and capped stores but the next hive had very few bees and a very small patch of brood. I may swap the woodenware around put the nuc bees in a 10 frame hive and the weak hive bees in the nuc just to see how the weak hive does. I hope to get to the other hives in the next two days. It was nice getting back into the bees again after looking at posts from other folks.

SmithN · Post by **SmithN** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:55 pm

Thanks Kurt,
I may do a combine, still undecided.

Ski,
Nice looking queen!
Good brood pattern especially this time of year!

SmithN · Post by **SmithN** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:01 pm

I inspected my 4 remaining hives this week.
Hive #10 is bursting with bees and brood.

http://i524.photobucket.com/albums/cc33 ... e10med.jpg

http://i524.photobucket.com/albums/cc33 ... 10deep.jpg

http://i524.photobucket.com/albums/cc33 ... rn2-11.jpg

SmithN · Post by **SmithN** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:07 pm

All ten hives.

http://s524.photobucket.com/albums/cc33 ... %202-2011/

ski · Post by **ski** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:17 pm

Norma..looks like a nice brood pattern with uncapped cells being filled with some nice pearly white larvae. Nice picture.

SmithN · Post by **SmithN** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 8:28 pm

Thanks ski,
I was suprised to find frames like that this time of year.
There are eggs in most of the cells on the outer edges too!
They have a few more frames like that.
They have a 2nd super above them with only a few bees in it, so they have space for now.
I will have to split them as soon as I see drones flying to prevent swarming.

Post by **Wally** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 8:53 pm

Beautiful job. They are looking good.

drewgrim · Post by **drewgrim** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:18 pm

i have a few hives that are busting at the seems. when is an ok time to split? if i dont have a queen for the second hive. i was thinking about waiting until i see drones?

Post by **Wally** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:35 pm

Wait until you see drones, or 1 week after you have capped drone cells.

SmithN · Post by **SmithN** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 4:44 pm

Thank you Wally,
Your opinion means a lot to me!