Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Last Sunday I was reversing my brood boxes and dropped one of the boxes. It broke and I had to put the frames into a new box. I put the hive back together again. It now has two brood chambers (Med. 8 frame), feeder and the inner and top cover. There were a lot of bees on the ground so I walked away and in 1 hour they were gone. Is there anything else I should do at this time. When I was inspcting the hive I saw some larva, some covered brood and quite a lot of capped honey, I did not see the queen but assume she is somewhere.
What shoud I do now, do I need to just wait and see or is this a time for a mentor visit. Also when should I add the honey box and queeen excluder.
This is my second year with the bees.

If you lost the queen Sunday, all the eggs have hatched into larva by now. I would go into it today or tomorrow and look for eggs. If they are there, all is well. If not, you may need to requeen.

If the hive is 80% or more full of bees, honey, pollen, and brood, it is time to add a box.

As for the excluder, that varies with the beekeeper. I never use one.

A mentor visit might be a good idea. I will private message you with the password to our current mentor list on the site. I plan to e mail it to GCBA members in the near future. I would think you would want to confirm that you have a functioning queen after the accident. You don't have to see her--the presence of well placed eggs in cells will let you know that she has been laying within the last 3 days (and well after the date of the accident).

Wally has already added a honey super and I may be putting one on my stronger hives in the next few days. Knowing how strong the hive is and whether it could make use of the additional space would help. The queen excluder is a matter of choice. Since I extract honey, I don't use an excluder. I don't take frames that have brood in them, but capped honey frames don't have to be pretty if I am not doing cut comb.

Please consider adding your location (city, town. . . ) to your profile on the forum board. All beekeeping is local, and sometimes VERY local.

So what was your outcome ?? Was the queen OK???

The queen must be in there, I have loads of bees. I was late removing my top feeder and the bees build very nice and straight comb. It is full of honey, I removed it today, put on another super of 8 med. and a queen excluder. I am hoping for more honey. When I looked at the frames there were some exposed larva that the bees put between the frames and the boxes. I cleaned up the mess, took off the feeder, added the box and closed up the hive.
Any suggestions as to what else I need to do???? It looks like I need all the help I can get.

Normally the brood between frames is drone brood. If you break it open when pulling frames apart it is a good opportunity to look for varroa mites. They favor drone brood. If you find no mites, that is good. If you find mites on almost every larva, you need to do a full assessment and consider a treatment schedule.