Guilfordbeekeepers.org

For those who have never seen robbing, here is the death of a hive in progress. Ignore the date on the photo, I have never set the camera date.
The pic was taken today, 7-23-07

I have had this happen to two hives this summer. Not a good feeling when you come home from work and see this going on. They will literaly empty all honey and pollen. They all kill tons of bees plus tear the comb down. Well, that is what happened to two of my hives. I was still able to save both hives from TOTAL destruction. They have both almost fully recovered. I had to move them miles down the road because the bees still found the hives after I had moved them. It was very frustrating.

When this is going on are there clumps of bees on the ground walking around that can no longer fly? I am either having very active orientation flights with 50-60 bees unable to fly once they get out of the hive or robbing that is not as dramatic as the picture (bees hovering at the front of the hive and going in, but not all over the outside of the hive).

Orientation flights are done around 3 to 5 pm. Robbing goes on all day.

Orientation flights have no bees on the ground unless there is dfw, "deformed wing virus" or other problem with the hive.

Robbing will have bees "wrestling" with each other. O flights will not.

I have something going on that maybe you can help identify. I swapped places with a weak swarm hive and the strong 5 frame nuc I bought back in June. That was yesterday. I did a pretty good frame-by-frame inspection too.Today I had a medium super ready to put on and I did this and then noticed that there were lots of dead and dying bees out in the grass and I watched for awhile and I saw the colony taking out dead bees and trying to fly away with them. I looked under the hive at the screened bottom board and I could not see thru the board for all the dead bees. I don't know if this is robbing or not. I know the swarm did not have any stores in this spot and this hive was full except for one frame which is why I put on the super. The bees seemed to have broken wings, broken legs or were dead already. What do you think Wally? I did not notice anything like the pics.

I am not Wally but it sounds to me like you have some robbing going on. Watch the hive at a time when it would be uncommon for O flights. Or if the O flights appear to be going on ALL day then this is a pretty good sign of robbing. Remember that O flights only last about 30 minutes or so. Any longer and it probably isn't O flights.

It's just a guess, but I would think that the swap, which would work fine in a flow, does not work in a dearth. The returning foragers are allowed in when laden with necter or pollen. They may be repelled when returning empty, as robbers would do. If so, then it is fighting between the two colonies. I would move them both about 20 feet or more and let the returning bees find a home to go to. That should make them approach a hive with their tails between their legs, begging for entrance.

I will have to see what happens today and hope that it has been resolved. There is plenty of bees in there and I hope they move up to the new super. I thought it MIGHT have been the new box with KILZ paint and the fresh glue and all, but I think this is very unlikely. It was definetly a battle of some sort, I bet on what Wally said is the probable answer. Well, at least I have a strong swarm colony now!

I have put entrance reducers on both my hives and blocked the entrances like in the Spring. The weaker hive calmed quickly and the stronger hive still has many bees trying to enter, just like when I first put feeders on the hives in the Spring. I hope there are enough of my bees left to rally and regain control, but it looked like overwhelming numbers of bees entering both hives yesterday evening and this morning.

Well today I went back out to check on the hive and found that they were still carrying out bees, dead or dying. I noticed that most of them were smaller bees just able to fly. I then noticed one flying worker kept circling the corner of the hive in the grass. I looked a little closer and found then queen dead! I was heartbroke. I then got my suit on and went in for a frame by frame inspection. This box is packed full of bees but there was no queen. I did see a small queen cell/cup on the bottom of one of the frames and there was a worker bee with his head stuck in it. I did not find a queen anywhere. There was lots of capped brood and open brood and eggs. This was a good queen I had. I can't understand what killed her, but now I must make a decision to try to get another queen, or let them make one. Gee, right in the start of the cotton bloom too! What would you do? I could possibly go get another queen from Rick in Goldsboro Saturday maybe.

Some beeks remove their queen at the beginning of a flow. They have all the foragers they want for the flow and don't want a lot hatching when the flow is over. Also, without new eggs being laid during the flow, there is less brood to be fed, so more bees to work the flowers. It may give you a better crop to just let them raise a new queen and have this period during the flow with no new eggs. Better honey crop, plus a queen from your known genetics. Win win situation.

While I agree that you can make a honey crop without a queen, personal experience indicates this is not the best scenario. I have always had my largest honey harvests from queen right colonies. I am assuming t his is because the older bees are working harder to support the new bees.

If there is some other evidence to the contrary, I would be interested in seeing it.

This is more about compacting, but it does talk about caging or removing the queen for increased honey yield.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthr ... post250901

Hindsight is 20/20 so they say. I have read about 2 books on beekeeping and both recommended the swap as a good trick to strengthen a weak hive. I also read on the web about how to do it. I have not read in any of the above places that there was a danger of the queen getting killed. If so I would have not done so and the swarm hive was starting to put out more foragers. Last night I picked up Richard Taylor's The Joy of Bee Keeping, and about 5 pages beyond where I had stopped reading the night before, you guessed it, he talks about swapping hives, and there for the first time was one sentence that warned that the queen MAY be killed. I guees the bees read this book also! I contaced Rick and I am planing on going after work and getting a new queen from him. In hindsight, I would not have swapped if I had known there was a chance of her getting killed, at least with the lack of experience I have at this point. If more experienced, I would have just caged her up for two or three days.
Live and learn ! I did get a stronger swarm hive, but at the cost of my best laying queen.

With bees, there is no foolproof method, but swapping does work the vast majority of the time. I'm sorry you lost the queen, but as said above, you can save the genetics of your best queen by giving them a chance to raise one of her daughters. I have swapped many times, all successful, but it has been in the spring when there was a flow going on.

Wally,

What was the outcome for this hive? Did you close it up, or was it too late?

I know you had to work on finding that answer Wally.

I am well aware that compressing hives is highly recommended when making comb honey, especially by Killion.
I also notice they suggest caging and not removing the queen. Perhaps the pheremone is essentail to encourage the bees to gather as much nectar as possible.

Kurt

I never work hard...

That was the first one I found. There are others that suggest taking the queen and all open brood out and starting a nuc. That leaves no open brood to be fed. Then it is given a queen cell or a queen after the flow is well under way. I just didn't want to work hard enough to find it, especially when it is only someone else's rambling that I don't practice anyway. I just thought it might be appropriate for his particular situation.

Ron, it was too late. I let it go.

I went to goldsboro after work and got another queen. I will put the cage in this morning before work. Then hopefully by Sunday, she will be laying eggs. I don't want to push the issue though. I forgot to mention this after thought that may mean something. The tow hives I switched were only about 12 feet away from each other and the entrances facing the same way. Maybe the close proximity made the difference? Anyway, It was a leason well learned. Next time, cage the queen for a couple of days. I will let you know when she starts laying.