How long should a hive live?

[p51d]

I am looking to see if I can get better this year with my hive management. If a hive is actively managed and the beekeeper in the perfect world has access to queens, etc, a hive can last many years. I have had hives last 4 years (thanks to this forum and learning from the great bee keeps at the meetings)

Here is what I do, and why:

[*]Active management (checker boarding and splits in the spring) where I checkerboard and try to build out nucs with checkerboard frames. Fairly successful - I let them make a queen.
[*]Grab a couple of packages of bees from Brushy Mountain to make a couple of hives if my losses are 40% or more. I try to maintain 6 hives.
[*]The existing hives once established I check once a month or so. I try to let them manage themselves.
[*]Instead of re-queening a older hive, I let them follow nature and make a new queen when necessary.

Generally I can have a hive last 3 years or so without issue.

How do I get better at hive management? I know, hives just die due to various reasons.I am good with that. What I am trying to figure out is:

strong hives - why they seem to fade away. Could be many factors. Does it make sense to re-queen versus let them make a new queen?
Weak hives - place them on a strong hive with a couple of pieces of newspaper? Let them combine? That has risks as well.

comments and direction are appreciated.

[Wally]

I have a hive that is over 10 years old. I'm thinking about 14, but cannot remember for sure. The first thing is find a good strain of bee to work with, then let the weak ones die and replace with queens from the strong ones.

PS. This hive is what is known as Wayne's bees. You can get them from Larry Tate in Winston-Salem. They are strong, mite resistant bees acclimated to this area. I had another hive of them live for 10 years and died when the new queen after a swarm did not return after mating.

PSS. Neither of these 2 hives were ever treated for mites.

[pholcomb]

I purchased two packages of locally-raised New World Carniolans from Larry Tate last April and they seem to be very mite resistant. I have been doing 3 day mite counts quite often.since August and I have found almost zero mites. And I didn't treat. Not even powdered sugar.

Both hives are doing very well. I'm thinking I may have to do an early split. I'll post a pic tonight (taken yesterday) of one of the hives foraging at a furious pace, as well as a pic of one of the mite boards. Maybe an experienced eye can find a mite on there, but I couldn't.

Paul

[Jacobs]

There are two issues that you may already have included in your plans and are implied in Wally's post.

1st--Queenright/queen quality issues. I am finding a couple of critical times during a typical
season. If installing a new package, is the queen accepted and performing or being
superceded? If she is being replaced by the bees, has the re-queening been successful?
The same considerations are there for making a split and letting them re-queen and
for monitoring a functioning hive for swarming activity and re-queening success. Even
after the bees have made a new queen, she may start out well, but start fading later in
the season if she did not get well mated. I am trying to mark my queens with the
proper color for year of creation. This lets me know if a queen has been replaced, and
if so, I am alerted to keep an eye on her performance. I'm still working through the late
summer/early fall decision about combining hives, and deciding when a hive is
weak enough to give up on a queen and combine (killing the poor performing queen
and doing a newspaper combination) but with enough bees to make
the effort worthwhile.

2nd--Varroa Mite Plan--Whether by brood interruption, like making splits, or monitoring and
treating, most colonies are not making it much more than 2 seasons if the varroa
are free to wreak havoc.

My neighbor, David, has one hive that is starting it's 7th season. It has replaced its own queen several times, and we have monitored and treated for mites when needed. He also has a hive with a Wayne's bee queen going into its 3rd season. We did not treat it last Fall, and as of about a week ago, it looks like one of the stronger hives he has. I believe he has ordered 2 more Wayne's queens from the Tates. The Wayne's bees can be testier than Italian mutts so if you decide to try them, you may not want them in a small area in a suburban back yard hive.

[pholcomb]

Following up from this morning, see the pic below of one of my mite boards from September. Am I missing something, or is it pretty much mite-free? Also see pic of one of my hives from yesterday. Although I haven't done anything to stimulate brood production, is it possible that this queen is already laying eggs? If so, should I put a sugar water feeder in my backyard as soon as this cold snap is over, to make sure they don't run out of fuel before March? Thanks.

Paul

[pholcomb]

Hive yesterday 1/20/13.

[Jacobs]

I may be seeing a few (very few) varroa mites in your photo, but the focus is not quite clear enough for these eyes. I am going by shape and size. If what I am seeing is accurate, I wold be pretty happy with my mite situation.

Colonies can definitely be building brood now. As sunlight gets longer, queens can start increasing the number of eggs they lay. Some are earlier starters than others. My bees are largely mutts, so I don't know that I can point to one variety of bee versus another, but there are differences in cluster size and spring build up depending on the type of honey bee.

You need to keep an eye on your hives and make decisions about feeding based on what you want to accomplish. My first goal is not to have a hive starve because of my neglect. On cold days when bees are not flying, I will tip the FRONT of a hive to feel the weight. I will tip the back, but some of my hives are forward tilted and balanced in a way that tipping from the rear does not give a true feeling for the weight of the hive. If an individual hive is light, find a way to feed that hive(putting honey frames in it on a warm day, or a spacer with newspaper & dry sugar over the top frames, etc.)

If you start feeding hives sugar water and/or pollen substitute now, you ARE going to stimulate brood rearing. You must keep up the feeding until natural nectar sources are available or you will risk having strong hives starve. If you go this route, you will either be building lots of workers that should be mature and available for the nectar flow, or you will be setting yourself up to watch your bees swarm. In other words, if you stimulate brood rearing, you will want to plan/manage for swarming potential.

[Wally]

GOOD POST, Rob. And well needed this time of year.

[p51d]

Thanks for all the input. I guess my question from Wally and others do you re-queen or let nature take it's course? So far I let nature take it's course.

One hive was great in the spring, I checkerboarded, yet the hive split anyway. The hive was good for a couple of weeks then died pretty quick. I waited too long and the wax moths were well established with a couple of hundred bees remaining.

My best hive lasted 5 years. Of course, they made a new queen during that time. Last year it was great too but dird after I pulled the honey supers. I did not bother the brood chamber.

Just trying to better manage the expectancy of the hives.

I also will give Larry's bees a try. To date, italians from Brushy Mountain and Russians (Russians are mean!)

Thanks to all.

[pholcomb]

Thanks for the detailed response Rob. I put sugar over the top frames back in early November, and when I popped the tops during that recent warm spell the bees were working the sugar pretty well.

The high activity level of the hives is what concerns me. Though they seem to be bringing in a remarkable amount of pollen, I've read that when bees frequently break cluster during the winter and forage a lot they tend to burn through the honey supply a lot faster.

Swarming is a preferable risk to starving for me. But if I start feeding sugar water after the cold snap, then I guess the difficult question becomes (assuming the hives continue to do well) "When do I make a split?" Early March? Late March?

Rob, it might be helpful if you came by and took a look in a month or so. This late winter/early spring transition seems pretty tricky.

Paul

[Jacobs]

I'd be happy to come by and have a look when weather permits.

Tipping the hive should give you some indication of whether your fast building/most active hives are burning through stores and need individual feeding. When weather allows me a pop-the-top look, I tend to go to those hives first. I want to know if the cluster has eaten its way to the inner cover and needs feeding or whether there is still honey above the cluster.

The presence of mature flying drones in good quantities or your ability to purchase mated queens will determine when you can split a hive. Southern Georgia package bees with queens have been available in late March for the last few years. Depending on how their winter went, they may have extra queens available then or they may be desperately short.

[pholcomb]

Forgot that I will need some mature drones in the area if I am going to let the split raise their own queen. I'll either do that, or purchase a locally-raised mated queen from Larry Tate (if he has any available.) Either way I suspect I won't be doing a split before early - mid April.

Paul

[Wally]

I haven't bought a queen since 1983. It may be my imagination, but I feel local queens do a lot better than shipped queens.
That being said, I am partial to Wayne's bees, since I was instrumental in bringing them to market. Larry Tate will be selling them this spring. Just remember, Larry won't have drones any sooner than you will.

[pholcomb]

Seems reasonable to me that locally-raised queens will do better than imports, but I'm just a newbee.

History question: What are Wayne's Bees? I know that Larry sells NC-raised New World Carniolans (developed by Sue Cobey out in California)) and Italian Hygienic (developed by Marla Spivek at the University of Minnesota) and now I see that he is advertising Wayne's Survivor Queens. What is their lineage? Thanks.

Paul

[Wally]

This was written in Feb, 2012. He still has not had any die from mites.



Wayne Rich, of Sophia, NC began beekeeping sometime in the 1960's as a hobby to have honey for his family and pollinate the family farm. He only knew what the older local beeks taught him and what he learned from experience. He never medicated a hive in any way. He had the normal die off and the normal swarm catches that were common in those days. By 1987, he had approx. twenty five hives. When the mites showed up he lost all but one hive. That hive survived and begin casting swarms. Some lived, some died. In 2001, Wayne had 5 strong hives. He gave me a swarm from one of them that year. I placed that colony in a yard by itself and began to catch swarms, make splits, use swarm cells to start nucs, and use eggs and larva from that hive to bait trap outs. Of all the colonies I have started from that hive, and it has been many, none have ever been reported to have died from mites. None, as far as I know, have ever been treated. When I let someone have one, I asked to have them marked and traced, not treated, and report back if any ever died from mites. None have ever reported to me that they died from mites.

Wayne passed away Dec. 26th, 2008. Since that time, I have promoted these bees as "Wayne's bees". In 2010, Larry Tate, of Tate's Apiaries accepted a colony of Wayne's bees and began to graft from them. He is also going treatment free with them. So far, he is happy with their production, temperament, and longevity. He has not had any die from mites.

[pholcomb]

Wow, great story. Last question. I am treatment free (so far) and hope to remain so. I'd like to reserve one of the Wayne's Survivor queens for my split this spring, if Larry has any left. However, did a read on one of Rob's posts that these bees tend to be a little bit hot? I live in the city on a small lot, so I don't want to push my luck. Thanks.

Paul

[Wally]

On a scale of 1 to 10, if the average bee is 5, then Wayne's may be 5 1/2 or 6, NOT 8 or 9. You would have to have them for quite some time before you would ever notice any difference. I work them with smoke only, no veil or other protection.

[pholcomb]

I reserved one of Wayne's Survivor Queens from Tate's today. Assuming they survive the next two months, I'll use it to re-queen a split made from my Carnis, (see pics above) which already seem to be pretty mite resistant. Should be an interesting experiment.

When I do the split in April it might be good to have you or Rob come over and make sure I do it correctly. If I was re-queening with an import from Ga I wouldn't worry about it. To get one of Wayne's Queens however, is pretty special so I don't want to mess it up.

Paul

[Jacobs]

I'd be happy to get in on the fun of making a split.

[Wally]

And if he has something come up, I'll be glad to fill in.