Guilfordbeekeepers.org

I have never seen a hive robbed before June 1. Has anyone else seen it?

I'm talking colony, not dead out.

Thanks to the both of you for explaning that, I made these notes in my log book for reference
Herb

I was able to get in yesterday and I feel like I'll need to at least give them some sugar water, there was some pollen in the hive body and upper medium. No honey supply in the hive body but the brood is great alot of new bees. The top medium is scattered with honey source in the middle 4 frames and lower amount in the outers. I'm more concerned that the queen is laying the eggs and new bees are being born with rain today and Saturday then the first of the week the lows are in the 30's with them being inside they might eat through what they have?
I'll get some sugar today & make up some and hopefully Sunday I'll be able to put on my top feeder, Good plan or not?

herbcoop wrote:
“top medium is scattered with honey source in the middle 4 frames and lower amount in the outers.”

Your capped stores sound minimal and you did not mention uncapped stores so even though we are in or on the edge of a nectar flow depending on the area I think it is a good plan to provide syrup just as a precaution. IF the cold snap slows the nectar flow the hive will have stores to fall back on.
I would not feed them much, maybe 1-2 quarts, as the flow should get stronger over the next week.

Ski- thank you... I'll need to read up on what "uncapped stores" are, if what I'm thinking is correct is empties in the foundation then yes there are quite a few
I'll get some sugar tonight and prepare and put it on Sunday afternoon when it's sunny and warmer
Thanks again

Herb,
Sounds like a good plan on feeding the syrup.

Capped stores - Nectar or syrup that has been curred by the bees and has been capped over.
Uncapped stores - nectar or syrup that has NOT been curred by the bees and does NOT have a capping. So you would see a liquid in the cell.

There are empty cells next to the bees and capped stores to the right.

The ornamental trees at Friendly Center were blooming last Friday (February 15, 2013). This is about 2 weeks earlier than last year. This winter I have been feeding diluted honey water in my jar feeders. The bees have been taking it, but there has never been a real frenzy. My thinking is that they either have good stores or have been finding some nectar somewhere.

I really want to see the Friendly Center trees in warm, bee flying weather while they are blooming. If honey bees are working them, I would like to know what they are. They might be a good tree to encourage cities to plant.

There is a lot of good and timely feeding information in this thread from a year ago. With my hives really bringing in pollen and being very active on the warm days, I am figuring that brood rearing is ramping up. The bees are also going heavily to the water on warm days--another confirmation of brood rearing and possible consumption of honey stores. The weather pattern this year of one warm day followed by four or five wet or cold days has me tipping the hives regularly. I don't want to lose a hive to starvation having gotten them this far along over winter.

bummer....my Russians did not survive the winter. They just kicked the bucket on me. Time to start over again.

Glad you other guys are doing o.k.

p51d wrote:bummer....my Russians did not survive the winter. They just kicked the bucket on me. Time to start over again.

Glad you other guys are doing o.k.

How many hives did you have?

Hope you guys don't mind if I join in on the conversation...I'm in Forsyth County, but my club has no forum and Beesource is not exactly local. Sorry to hear about the Russians. I've got a couple of hives of Russians and I'm breathing a lot easier since I opened my hives this weekend. This has been my first winter. One of my Russian's is quite a bit smaller than the other. I'm hoping for supercedure. The other is busting at the seams. I've also got a hybrid Italian/Russian hive that is really huge. I had no idea they were as big as they are. I cut a hybrid queen larvae out today...hope they don't have their mind set on swarming before I can get a couple of splits out of it. Lost an Italian hive early winter due to queen failure. From everything I've read, I'm lucky I only lost one. Nice to read you guy's posts.

I'm not from Guilford either, but that doesn't matter. Everyone is welcome here.

I would advise against destroying queen cells. They may be superceding because they know something is wrong with the old queen and you could wind up queenless. Putting the cell in a nuc with 2 or 3 frames of brood and food would be a better choice.

I want to join in the welcome as well. A few of our members have moved out of state and still keep in touch through the forum board. The more input we have, the more we all gain. We are getting some posts with references to specific varieties of plants that our bees work, something I know little about and find very helpful. (Thanks pholcomb)

As I understand it, supercedure cells are located on the face of a frame whereas swarm cells are on the bottom. Those are the ones I'm getting rid of. I'll let a supercedure take place at this time of the year. Speaking of which, my neighbor came over yesterday to help me with my hives. He showed me a neat trick to eliminate swarm cells. Had it been me , a newbee, I would have pulled every frame out and looked for the swarm cells...a pretty long chore. He would remove a box, set it on the ground and tilt it to about 45 degrees so you could see underneath. Then take the hive tool and scrape out the gap between frames which quickly removed any burr comb, drone comb or queen cells in its path in one long swoop. 10 swipes of the tool and your done....on to the next box. And sure enough, he ripped open a queen cell with a pretty mature larvae inside. I asked why not save the queen cell for a split and he said we still have some cold weather ahead of us and its a little early for a split. She was so far along that the girls probably are set on swarming and I'll probably have my hands full preventing it. We'll see. Most of you more experienced beeks already know this trick, but I thought it was pretty slick and worth sharing.

Opinions differ about destroying queen cells, but I don't think Wally was necessarily differentiating between types of queen cells. What if your bees have made the commitment to swarm and decide to go? If the queen has shut down, you may wind up in a queenless situation because you have taken out the swarm cells. I don't know that destroying the swarm cells stops the swarming impulse.

What do other folks think/do?

Oh no...I understood what Wally was saying. No worries. Its just in this particular situation with this hive I did what I thought was best. I have a huge hive that promises to be a great honey producer, so I don't want supercedure or a swarm. I think its a little early to split, so I'm not sure what I could do with a queen cell at this time. I think you are correct that the decision has possibly been made to swarm and removing a queen cell now probably won't stop them, but should slow them down while the weather improves for splitting. And I'm sure they will produce more cells that I can use soon.
You gotta love Beekeeping! So many variables! Thanx.

belewsboy before I went down that road too far I would feel a lot better if I could verify that there were very young larvae and eggs in the hive. I went in some hives today and found two that were 4 medium boxes and were slammed packed with bees but not one capped cell larvae or egg. Nine other hives that I have been in the last week all had capped and uncapped brood.

As far as queen cells are concerned the reading I have done has indicated that most of the time swarm cells are on the bottom of the frames and supercedure cells are mid frame so it comes as a good general rule.

I think the advice being provided here can be labeled as "being cautious" as it appears you just came through your first winter and its unclear how much experience you have. For all I know you may have worked with a few mentors and have some commercial experience just don't know so I/we error on the cautious side.

Welcome to the Forum

Thanx to all for your input. Advice is always welcome and appreciated.

First, as Jacobs said, it doesn't matter which they are. My guess is you will be queenless in 2 weeks if you didn't miss a cell.

Once the hive has started to prep for swarming, the ONLY thing that will stop it is to remove the queen, or cage her. Put her in a nuc with a couple frames of brood and stores, and hold her.
PS. The time has been right for splits for over 2 weeks now.

I liked the way Kurt Bower explained it. Its what Wally said just a different way of doing it.
..................
Kurt bower wrote:

Bees need 2 things to swarm. A queen and field bees. To stop a swarm you have to effectively separate the two.

When making the split, you can leave the hives side by side if desired. I normally position the new hive 3 ft away.

Start by moving the entire hive to the new location (3 ft away.)

In the original location place a bottom board and an empty super to accomodate frames with swarm cells (deep or medium.)
Carefully remove frames from original hive until you have 2 frames with the best swarm cells you can find. These frames are placed in the center of the empty super which is in the original location. The frames should contain minimal uncapped brood and no queen. Fill in the rest of the super with a few frames of honey and empty drawn comb.

The new location with the original hive will now contain the queen and all of the remaining brood. Remove any swarm cells as you already have a queen.
In the next days to follow all of the field bees will leave the original hive and return to the new location.

Effectively you will have made a split in which one hive contains nurse bees, brood and a queen and the other hive contains field bees and swarm cells.
In this state neither hive will swarm because the necessary condtions for swarming can not be achieved.